Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday claimed that 2013 general elections rigging episode which the incumbent government is trying to conceal, will be reaching its logical end by end of this month. Speaking at a function organized in connection with Kashmir Day here, in which former prime minister AJK Barrister Sultan Mehmood also formally announced to join PTI, Imran said Pakistan could have been running in a better way even by a dictator than the so-called democratically elected government.
"Honestly speaking a dictator could have run the country ten times better than this government which has just ruined the country in the name of democracy. There is no accountability and a handful of people are running the country whatever the way they want," he regretted.
Imran welcomed the inclusion of former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Barrister Sultan Mahmood in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, saying he was an honest man and there is no corruption allegation against him. "I knew you (Barrister Sultan Mehmood) before as well but when I asked people about you, one thing everyone had in common to say about you [Barrister Mahmood] was that there were no corruption allegations against you," he added.
On the subject of local government elections, Imran alleged that local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa had been delayed due to the sluggish attitude of the administrations of Punjab and Sindh. He said the municipal system in the KP would be the first of its kind in Pakistan history whereby even villagers would have powers. "We want the LG system in place as we want to empower the people so that they could undertake development of the areas by themselves," he added.
The PTI chief said villagers and those living in tribal areas had never succumbed to slavery and had always rebelled when anyone, including the British, tried to subjugate them. He added that they knew their rights better than their counterparts. Calling out to the people of Kashmir, Imran said he had a vision for AJK under which the one institution that wouldn't be subservient to the regional government would be the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) so it may carry out its operations as an independent body.