ISLAMABAD: The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sikandar Sultan Raja, is facing urgent resignation, according to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has accused Raja of violating the law and the constitution and of being a facilitator of “poll fraud.”
The PTI additionally emphasized that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) members have to submit their resignations in addition to CEC Raja resigning.
It said that they conspired to deny the mandate that the electorate had given to PTI-backed candidates in the general elections on February 8, which were clouded by several allegations of vote-rigging.
PTI spokesperson Raoof Hasan called for the resignation of CEC and ECP members in a statement following numerous allegations of vote-rigging in the just concluded elections.
The PTI claims that prior to the purported election manipulation tipping the scales in favor of the PML-N, the party was comfortably leading with 170 seats in the National Assembly.
The party planned to pursue legal channels to expose this rigging and reclaim its mandate, according to party chairman Barrister Gohar Khan.
PTI founder chairman Imran Khan has previously called for Raja’s resignation on multiple occasions due to accusations that he had teamed up with the PML-N. This is not the first time PTI has asked that CEC resign. After his party’s overwhelming victory on 15 seats in the by-elections conducted in 20 Punjabi constituencies in 2022, Imran had even expressed mistrust for the CEC.
The PTI spokesperson on Sunday called for the CEC and election watchdog members, “who worked as main facilitators in the daylight robbery on public mandate,” to resign immediately.
The CEC and ECP members, according to Hasan, “completely failed in performing their constitutional and legal duties,” hence they had no moral or legal right to speak further about their positions.
He continued by saying that they even showed no respect or care for the law and the Constitution.
He went on to say that the CEC and ECP members “opened the door to violating the law, tarnishing democracy, and desecrating the public mandate—as well as to breaking the constitution.”
Furthermore, the spokesperson declared that it is unacceptable and untenable to impose PDM-2 on the country once more through daylight robbery on a public mandate.
In spite of his demands for the CEC and ECP members to quit immediately, he declared that the people and PTI would not tolerate any kind of malevolent conspiracy. The people-rejected PDM-2 will once again be imposed on the country by Hasan, who vehemently denounced the ongoing malevolent attempts and the “shameful drama to tamper with the results to convert PTI’s overwhelming majority into the minority.”
Hasan angrily attacked in a sharply worded statement the despicable scheme to rob the people of their authentic and genuine representatives, claiming that plans were in motion to purloin the public mandate and restore “the gang of criminals on the nation.”
He made it very evident that the nation’s citizens would defend and uphold their mandate in whatever circumstance and would not consent to any such evil scheme.
He claimed that the PTI had the fundamental constitutional, democratic, moral, and political right to form a government because it was the biggest and most well-liked party in the nation, represented in all four provinces, and had a clear popular mandate.
He remembered that Pakistan’s current state of economic and administrative disarray was caused by the “rejected and incompetent PDM group”. He continued by saying that three days ago, the country’s weary voters delivered PTI opponents a resounding drubbing in retaliation for their rejection of the party.
According to the statement, the 16-month incompetent PDM government caused the public’s suffering to worsen greatly, driving up inflation and destabilizing the once-thriving economy.
