Imdad 
Implement EVMs To Ensure Fair Elections
Imran Khan, the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), bemoaned the failure of his efforts to implement electronic voting machines (EVMs) to ensure fair elections in Pakistan on Wednesday.
He blamed “powerful quarters,” the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and the major political parties, who allegedly supported rigging, for the failure.
Implement EVMs For Free And Fair Polls In Pakistan
Imran Khan remarked, in reference to by-elections, “When I was in administration, I tried really hard for 2.5 years to implement EVMs for free and fair polls in Pakistan… [which] would have allowed us to organise transparent elections.”
He asserted that the opposition to these reforms came from the two political families that have ruled Pakistan for the past 35 years—the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Sikandar Sultan Raja, the head of the ECP, allegedly sided with these parties in their opposition to the EVMs despite the fact that it was the “duty of the ECP to ensure fair polls.”
Former PM Made The Accusation Without Naming Anyone
The former prime minister made the accusation without naming anyone, “And those people who have been in power in our nation for quite some time… those who affect the results of elections whenever they want to, they also opposed these voting machines.”
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In a dig at the CEC, Mr. Khan claimed that following the “massively manipulated local government elections” in Sindh, the election commissioner should have resigned. He said that the police prevented members of his party from running for at least 15% of the total number of seats and that the provincial government was allegedly paying the Sindh election commissioner.
Imran Criticized The CEC For Refusing
In addition, Imran Khan criticized the CEC for refusing to allow “open voting” in the Senate election despite Supreme Court orders. Prior to the by-elections, he asserted that CEC Raja had also been “secretly meeting” with PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Hamza Shehbaz.
The PTI chairman expressed sorrow that his party was not busy preparing to turn out the greatest number of votes on election day, as should be the case in any modern nation, but rather that it was busy preparing to prevent rigging on election day.
With a particular focus on polling places designated for women, he continued, “We are teaching our polling agents to resist rigging at polling stations.”
The PML-N’s victory in the by-election had been “directed to facilitate,” according to Mr. Khan, who once again used the names “Mr. X” and “Mr. Y.” He asserted that the PTI nominees were up against “umpires” who intended to facilitate the victory of the PML-N candidates as well as “turncoats” in the elections they were running in.
