PTI to resume agitation if judicial commission isn’t formed

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is fully prepared to resume its agitation with even more vigour against the government if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif failed to honour his own words to form the judicial commission to probe allegations of rigging in the May 2013 general election.
This was stated by the member of the Core Committee of the PTI and secretary of its overseas chapter, Dr Humayun Khan Mohmand in an interview with The News.He said this time the agitation would lead to a certain change in the politics of the country as the 126 days long sit-in of the PTI workers and common citizens in Islamabad educated the people about their rights and highlighted the need for transparent elections.
“This new breed of politically informed and educated Pakistanis will throw their weight behind the PTI struggle for a transparent electoral process through even more forceful agitation across the country,” Dr Humayun stressed.
He claimed that millions of countrymen and overseas Pakistanis cast their vote in the previous election, but they were shocked to know that their votes didn’t translate into victory for the party of their choice. “The voters have found fault with the electoral process and want to change it,” he maintained.
“The PTI is under immense pressure from both the people in the country and Pakistanis abroad to launch struggle for the correction of the electoral process in the country,” he said.Dr Humayun Mohmand said the party chairman Imran Khan has already given theJanuary 18 deadline for the formation of the judicial commission and the party workers and even common citizens are ready to re-launch protests if the government did not meet the deadline.
He said that around one million overseas PTI workers, who contribute about $0.4 million to the party, would also vigorously join the agitation.To a question, he said the PTI has given enough space to the government to resolve the issue amicably, “but it is not interested in any solution because it doesn’t want to probe the allegations of rigging in the previous election.”
About the issue of giving voting rights to the overseas Pakistanis, Dr Humayun Mohmand said that he along with the PTI Member National Assembly Dr Arif Alvi petitioned the Supreme Court Pakistan to secure the right to vote for the Pakistanis living abroad.“We have already worked out a plan for enabling the overseas Pakistanis to vote once they are given the right to vote,” he said.
He added: “Our prayer in the petition was that the court should also allow electronic voting for the 50-60 million overseas Pakistanis to elect their members of parliament through the proportional representation system.”
He argued that the previous and the incumbent government were not facilitating the overseas Pakistanis to vote because they are mindful of the fact that the PTI has the largest following abroad, he said.About holding the intra-party election, he said it would be held after the local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.