Ag APP
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said he will take a fresh vote of confidence from the National Assembly tomorrow (Saturday) through an open ballot — which he said should be the standard practice — as he chided the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for “damaging democracy” by conducting this year’s Senate elections with a secret vote.
His speech came in the aftermath of the government’s losing Islamabad’s Senate election general seat to the opposition’s Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Khan spoke at length about the Senate election, the state of society and his determination to continue his struggle for the rule of law and purging the country of corruption and the corrupt as long as he lives and even if is not in power.
Addressing the nation on Thursday, he said the ECP could have employed the latest technology in order to know who the turncoats were in the Senate elections and asked how hard it would have been to print bar codes on 1,500 ballot papers, in line with the instructions of the Supreme Court.
Referring to the recent Senate elections, the Prime Minister said unfortunately it had been past practice to use money in buying the loyalties of members of Parliament in this “august house of Parliament”, Radio Pakistan reported.
He said despite all the manoeuvrings of the opposition, “PTI has become the largest party in Upper House of the Parliament due to number of seats it won”. He said the two parties, naming PPP and PML-N, were in favour of secret ballot “so that they could buy the loyalties of members of Parliament”.
The Prime Minister said he favoured open ballot concept so that people do not indulge in such practices. He said his party also went to Supreme Court of Pakistan for this purpose and the apex court directed the ECP to use modern technology to ensure transparency in the elections. Khan regretted that some media persons go for the defence of corrupt people in the courts.
“Even if I do not remain in power or sit on opposition benches, it does not make any difference to me. I will continue [my] struggle for the rule of law, and fighting these thieves and bandits as long as I am alive,” Khan said.
The Prime Minister described the opposition parties’ use of “undemocratic tactics” to Gilani elected on a Senate seat, in a move he described as a method of pressuring and “hanging the sword of no-confidence [motion]” over him, saying he was going to take a vote of confidence from the National Assembly on Saturday (March 6).
He said as voting on the confidence motion would be open, even the Members of National Assembly (MNAs) belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could vote against him if they did not support him and “I will go to the opposition [benches]”. He was referring to those lawmakers who voted for the opposition candidate.
The Prime Minister said if he did not remain in power he would take the nation out on the streets against corruption and the corrupt. “The people do not come out for the corrupt, but against the corrupt and corruption,” he said.
He expressed his conviction that Pakistan was bound to emerge as a great nation in accordance with the dreams of its founding fathers. “This country will go up, and these big thieves and dacoits will be behind bars,” he promised.