Senate chairman’s election: All facts will become public in case of foul play, says PDM

ISLAMABAD: PDM President Fazlur Rehman Monday said intelligence agencies attempted to influence the recent Senate election and warned that if the same tactics were used in the election for the Senate chairman and deputy, they would make “all facts” public.

Addressing a press conference here along with Maryam Nawaz and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Fazl said their candidates would win elections for the Senate chairman and deputy in a fair and transparent way.

He said the long march of PDM would go ahead as caravans would start moving from across the country to reach the destination by March 30. To finalize further details of the long march, another parties’ heads meeting would be held on March 15 in Islamabad, he added. However, he said the option of resignations would remain there at the long march adding that they did not want to come into power through the back door.

Fazl termed both vote of confidence obtained by the prime minister from the National Assembly and the assembly session itself unconstitutional. “There is no provision in the Constitution that the prime minister or government should move a summary to convene the National Assembly session for the confidence vote,” he said.

Maryam ridiculed the government’s announcement about nomination of Sadiq Sanjrani as its candidate and questioned why the PTI would field their candidate for the Senate chairman when they did not enjoy majority.

“It means the government wants to stage sale and purchase of members and use pressure tactics,” she said. Maryam said the opposition would wait to see when the government moves for legislation for open balloting in the elections for the Senate chairman.

She said their parliamentarians were receiving phone calls. Bilawal Bhutto told a questioner that the government wanted to keep Yusuf Gilani out of race for the Senate chairman and that was why an application was moved to the Election Commission to withhold the notification of his success.

Maryam said the PDM would jointly plan for a change in the Punjab government saying despite all tactics, it was PML-N which won 2018 elections in the province. “There was PML-N government in the past and it will come again in future too,” she said. Fazl said the PDM meeting also condemned attack by the PTI workers on the PML-N leaders in Islamabad observing that this hooliganism reflected the government’s frustration.