Govt asks ECP members to resign after ‘shedding confidence of the folks’

Addressing a press convention in Islamabad, federal schooling minister Shafqat Mehmood stated regardless of proof of horse-trading, the ECP had failed to make sure the Senate polls have been held transparently, with the outcome that each one political events have been sad with the fee.

In such a situation, “there is no such thing as a possibility apart from the Election Fee can not proceed functioning in its present state. ECP [members] ought to resign en masse,” stated Mehmood, who was accompanied by Data Minister Shibli Faraz and Science and Expertise Minister Fawad Chaudhry.

“All people is criticising [the ECP]. Is there anybody who’s saying the election was performed correctly?” the minister requested. He stated this strengthened Prime Minister Imran Khan’s stance {that a} method must be adopted to finish the shopping for and promoting of votes with a purpose to make the elections clear.

He stated the premier had all the time advocated for using open poll within the Senate elections, whereas the PTI was the one social gathering that took motion in opposition to its members who had allegedly bought their votes within the 2018 polls for the higher home.

Forward of the 2021 Senate elections, he stated, the federal government launched a constitutional modification invoice and filed a reference within the Supreme Court docket looking for recommendation on open poll. “The Supreme Court docket determination was precisely in accordance with the state of affairs. They stated a constitutional modification is important to vary the mode of voting,” he added.

However Mehmood stated the SC had additionally acknowledged that it was the ECP’s duty to conduct free and honest elections that weren’t marred by corruption.

He recalled that the PTI subsequently approached the ECP with a request that it make ballots traceable whereas sustaining their secrecy in mild of the SC determination. “However sadly it was rejected [and] a committee was fashioned to take the measure in future elections,” he stated.

Based on the minister, it was because of the ECP’s lack of motion that “corrupt practices” happened within the election on the Senate normal seat from Islamabad — which opposition candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani gained regardless of the federal government having a majority within the Nationwide Meeting.

Mehmood stated all political events, together with the ruling PTI, had misplaced confidence within the ECP.

He emphasised that the present ECP couldn’t proceed if the political events and other people of the nation didn’t trust in it or noticed its choices with suspicion. After the present members’ resignation, he stated, new ECP members must be appointed underneath whom the fee would conduct clear elections.

“We would like the ECP to play the function of a impartial umpire, which it’s not doing,” he stated, including that though the Supreme Court docket had given an “alternative” to the ECP which it might have utilised and brought measures to make the Senate polls honest, the physique didn’t accomplish that and “harm our democracy”.

“Subsequently, the chief election commissioner and his members ought to resign […] in order that the parliament will get the prospect to type a brand new ECP which everybody trusts.”

Answering a query, Mehmood stated the demand for resignation was a “political response”, and the federal government had no intention of submitting a reference on this regard.

The ECP and the PTI-led authorities have been on a collision course since earlier than the Senate elections, after the fee determined to carry the March 3 polls by way of secret poll attributable to what it referred to as “time constraints”.

After key PTI candidate Hafeez Shaikh suffered defeat within the election, Prime Minister Imran Khan in a televised deal with to the nation accused the ECP of “damaging democracy” and criticised the physique over use of secret poll for polling.

Responding to the premier, the ECP chided the PTI for being upset over the election outcome and requested the social gathering’s management to cease mudslinging in opposition to establishments and settle for its defeat.

Nonetheless, the federal government upped the ante in opposition to the fee, with members of the prime minister’s cupboard saying at a press convention that the ECP shouldn’t be “saddened” however “ashamed” at having allegedly failed to carry honest and clear Senate elections.