Bilawal condemns PTI’s continuous attacks on ECP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has condemned the PTI government’s continuous attacks on the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and said that the ECP’s refusal to become partner in the rigging and electoral engineering with the PTI is being taken as ‘rebellion’.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan has to conduct its business in accordance with the Constitution and the relevant laws and the threats to the ECP to compel it to toe the PTI’s electoral fraud strategies has to be condemned in strong terms,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

He said the nation stands with the ECP as a national institution. The demand for resignations from the chief election commissioner and ECP members are blackmailing tactics on the part of the PTI government, which has accumulated millions of dollars through foreign funding as a dubious political party to grab power.

The PPP chairman said an independent ECP is necessary for a vibrant and genuine democracy and warned that any attempts to hold the ECP hostage would be resisted by all democratic forces.

Meanwhile, talking with the media, PPPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman said the government threats of going to court to initiate contempt proceedings against the chief election commissioner (CEC) and ECP members if they do not resign from their offices is an unprecedented and inexplicable attack on the ECP’s authority and independence.

“It is absurd that just because an independent and constitutional body is not following the prime minister’s dictation, he wants them to resign,” she said, adding that if there was any conflict, the government should have been taken it up constitutionally. “But pressurizing the CEC and ECP reflects the extreme environment of unstable and unsustainable authoritarianism of this government,” she added.

“Taking Pakistan into a constitutional crisis for self-gain is selfish and disastrous for our country’s constitutional institutions, our democratic fundamentals and self image,” she said and asked how this government can say that the ECP did not hold free and transparent elections after what happened in Daska. “They are only creating a dangerous level of instability in the country with such controversies,” she said.

She said what this government does not realise is that this smear campaign against the ECP is only damaging their own credibility and is exposing their insecurities. “All democratic parties are with the ECP and we will not let this government undermine the democratic process of our country,” she added.

Sherry said it is shocking how the premier is targeting a state institution when the results don’t please him. “This only goes out to show his intolerance for an independent institution when it does not bend to his whim” she said.