ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Thursday alleged that “hidden powers” want to rig the elections in the country by controlling the Elections Commission of Pakistan (ECP), but the people of the country are unwilling to let this plan succeed.

In a virtual address to his supporters, who protested outside the ECP offices across the country against its verdict in the PTI prohibited funding case, Khan, in a thinly veiled reference to the establishment, said that “some hidden powers wanted to control the country by manipulating elections”.

“I demanded a show of hand voting method in the Senate. The ECP remained indifferent to rigging and horse-trading during several by-polls,” he added.

The former prime minister said that the “imported regime” has miserably failed to befool the masses and is now busy in making futile exercise to steal the people’s mandate through a biased election commission.

He alleged that the Sikander Sultan Raja-led Election Commission is also a major impediment to achieving ‘real freedom’ through a strong democracy, but all those including the CEC will have to surrender before the will of the people as the people know their rights quite well.

“They (the incumbent government) bought the loyalties of our people then they used money in an attempt to break our party, he claimed adding after facing a shocking defeat in Punjab by-elections despite rigging attempts they are now trying to control the people through the ECP.

He also criticized the CEC for holding a meeting with a PML-N delegation in which the leaders of the ruling alliance requested the CEC to announce the verdict in the PTI prohibited funding case at the earliest.

“Under which law he met the delegation of the ruling alliance? He (the CEC) met them as he is controlled by them,” he alleged.

Khan censured the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for its “biased” verdict in the party’s prohibited funding case, saying it must know that collecting funds from expatriates is not foreign funding.

He said that taking money from foreign companies was not illegal in 2012 as changes in the law were made in 2017.

“The PTI collected money from companies in 2012 and the law prohibiting such fundraising was formulated in 2017 so my party did not violate any law and the ECP should be ashamed of itself if it can’t differentiate between foreign funding and fundraising from overseas Pakistanis,” he added.

He said his party established a company in the US as it was illegal in the US to raise funds without a limited liability company (LLC).

The former prime minister claimed that the PTI is the only political party that raised money through political fundraising, unlike other parties especially the PML-N and the PPP which he alleged, were run by “mafias”.

Criticising the verdict, he said that collecting funds by political parties through hosting dinners is a common practice all over the world, adding he also organised fundraising dinners and the money collected through it was given to the party.

He continued that the parties who are making a hue and cry over the donations given to the PTI are aware that no one would give them a single penny ‘as the world knows these corrupt mafias’ track record of stealing people’s wealth from Pakistan and stashing them at foreign banks’.

He said he had long been pressing for investigating the party funds of all the political parties in order to get the people to know from where the other parties – the PPP, the PML-N, the JUI-F, and others – are getting funds to run their respective parties, but the irony is that a ‘biased chief election commissioner’ is only targeting the PTI.

“The ECP says that money raised by expatriate Pakistanis is wrong. It declared it foreign funding. I want to ask if this money is foreign funding, what about the remittances and the money which is sent for earthquakes and floods,” he questioned. He criticized the CEC, Sikander Sultan Raja, alleging that he fell short of even declaring that the money sent by expatriate Pakistanis will be regarded as foreign funding, which is unfortunate.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022