Imran to be sworn in as premier before August 14, his party says
Ballot papers, empty ballot boxes found in 2 cities
ISLAMABAD: As efforts to form a coalition government at the centre and in the Punjab province gained momentum, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced that Imran Khan would be sworn in as prime minister before August 14 — the country’s independence day.
PTI office-bearers have claimed that they have been able to muster up the required number of MPs for a vote of confidence in Parliament in the coming week. Many of the MPs are independent candidates, while some smaller parties have also expressed their desire to join the PTI-led coalition.
The party inched a little closer to its target of forming a government in Punjab province after it managed to bring four of 28 of independent members of the provincial assembly into its fold.
PTI is in a better position to form a government in the province because one of its allies, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), won as many as seven seats. An independent MPA, opted to join PML-Q on Thursday, increasing the party’s strength to eight. However, negotiations with the PML-Q are in a deadlock over demands that its candidate be named chief minister of the province.
Meanwhile, allegations of rigging in the elections continued, despite the insistence of the Election Commission that the exercise had been free and fair.
A dozen ballot papers and as many as five empty ballot boxes were found by the roadside in Karachi and Sialkot, fuelling further suspicion about the transparency of the elections.
According to an electoral candidate in Karachi, about a dozen ballot papers were found in a garbage dump near the Qayyumabad area of the city. In Sialkot, local people found five empty ballot boxes near the city’s Kashmir Park in the Cantonment area late on Friday night. Police said that some unidentified people had thrown the empty ballot boxes.
The governor of Sindh province, Muhammad Zubair, resigned on Sunday as he expressed serious concerns over the fairness of the elections, alleging that the polls were “managed” to secure victory for a particular political party.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Zubair said although he wasn’t required to resign after the elections, he had done so because as per democratic traditions, the new federal government should have the authority to appoint the governors of its choice.
Zubair, who is a member of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party, expressed reservations over the manner in which the elections were conducted, stating them as other reasons that led him to step down.
“The responsibility for counting (votes) was (that) of election commission’s officers and polling agents. It was not the responsibility of any other department to sit there and count and dictate how the counting would be done and result would be disclosed,” he said.
Interestingly. most news channels stopped showing his speech after he made allegations against the military.