ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Saturday cast doubt about Prime Minister Imran Khan’s proposal of use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to reclaim credibility of elections, and termed it a “new plan to rig elections.”

Commenting on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tweets in which he invited opposition for talks on electoral reforms and insisted that the use of EVMs is the only answer to reclaim the credibility of elections, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said that Prime Imran Khan is “cooking up a new plan to rig elections”.

“A “vote stealer” and mandate “robber” cannot be trusted with electoral reforms…Those who abducted election staff in Daska should not lecture the nation on electoral reforms,” she said, in response to the prime minister’s offer for talks on the electoral reforms. “What good can be achieved by an electronic voting machine in a system where RTS [Results Transmission System] is suspended over a single order,” she asked in reference to the 2018 general elections. She said that the PML-N would not let Imran Khan's “sinister” plans of “hijacking and rigging” elections.

She maintained that electronic voting machines have failed all over the world and the study conducted by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also revealed that the system of electronic voting is impractical in Pakistan.

“Even in the most technologically advanced countries electronic voting machines have failed to prove as an effective system,” she claimed. “Imran Khan is mistaken that the history of rigging in 2018 would be repeated but he needs to know that none of his election fraud tactics will work now,” she maintained. She added: “Imran Khan is not concerned about the votes of the overseas Pakistanis, but he is more concerned about the remittances being sent home by the Pakistanis abroad… After deceiving and defrauding Pakistanis at home Imran is now trying to lure overseas Pakistanis into his Web deception.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021