ECP to hold important meeting, review PM Imran Khan’s allegations

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has convened an important meeting today (Friday) to review PM Imran Khan’s speech, who levelled serious allegations against the electoral body, holding it responsible for not managing the Senate elections in a transparent manner.

The chief election commissioner has summoned a meeting to review the prime minister’s speech and allegations leveled against him.

PM Imran took the ECP to task for failing to ensure a transparent election in his speech after the upset defeat of PTI candidate Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh for the Senate seat from Islamabad on Wednesday.

“Your biggest responsibility is a transparent election and it is your constitutional responsibility,” he said to the ECP.

“Why did you go to the court and say there should be a secret ballot? Does the constitution ever allow a theft of votes and for bribery to occur like has been in the last 30 years?” the premier asked.

He said the court had allowed the Commission to hold a secret vote but have some sort of identification mechanism whereby the PTI could now have discovered the 15-16 lawmakers “who sold themselves off”.

“You saved those criminals with this secret ballot and you hurt our democracy,” he said, in indignation at the ECP’s move to ignore the Supreme Court’s provisions to identify the ballots.