ISLAMABAD—On Saturday, the PTI criticized the information minister of the caretaker government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for criticizing President Dr. Arif Alvi’s statement about giving all political parties a fair chance before the general elections. They said that the “shameful role” of the interim government and the ECP was known to everyone.
In response to statements made by caretaker Federal Information Minister Murtaza Solangi and the ECP, the PTI spokesperson said that the country was well aware of the “shameful tactics” used by the interim government and the elections oversight body to deny the party its constitutional and legal rights to freely run for office.
No one is hiding the fact that the caretaker government and the election commission are continuously denying the PTI a level playing field, the spokesperson said. This came a day after the interim federal information minister and ECP spokesman criticised the president.
Solangi and the commission were unhappy with the president for supporting the PTI’s concerns about fair play and efforts to make the election process “suspicious.”
Many people were angry at the president after he wrote a letter to the temporary prime minister expressing the PTI’s worries about what they saw as violations of citizens’ rights and a loss of fair elections.
Solangi said that the whole country wanted the president to be the image of the federation and not seem like a “spokesperson for a party.” He criticised Dr. Alvi for supporting the PTI’s position.
It also warned of what it called “an attempt to make the transparency of the upcoming polls suspicious.”
In a statement, the ECP spokesperson said, “A high official is trying to make the openness of the upcoming election look murky.”
He said, “This behaviour is inappropriate.” He also said that the ECP was set on making sure the polls would be fair and open.
The PTI spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday that the interim information minister’s “absurd statement” against Dr. Alvi was wrong and that anyone holding the portfolio “unconstitutionally and illegally” after the constitutionally required period had ended should be “ashamed of teaching the Constitution” to the elected president.
A spokesperson for the PTI said that the caretaker minister’s job was to make sure that the country’s polls were free and fair, so making comments about the constitutional role of the head of state did not fit with that at all.
He said that the caretaker government should stop “lecturing” the president about the Constitution and instead focus on giving all political parties fair chances before the elections and stop helping the “nefarious agenda of pre-poll rigging.”
The PTI pointed out that the president had used his constitutional power to announce the date of the general elections and emphasised the need for free, fair, and open votes.
A spokesperson for the PTI stressed that Article 41 of the Constitution gave the president the power to protect everyone’s civil rights.
He said that Dr. Alvi was the only president in the history of the country who had done his job in a way that was in line with the Constitution.
