After Senate elections results, Pakistani political leaders call for an end to money for votes
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and cricket legend-turned-politician Imran Khan expressed concerns on alleged horse-trading, or buying of votes, during the Senate elections. They discussed their worries in separate talks with the media on Monday.
In the elections on March 3, the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) secured 12 seats, little more than it was expected to win.
The PPP won two Senate seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), where Imran Khan’s Party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is in power.
The result surprised PTI Chairman Imran Khan, who later criticized the PPP.
In a Tweet, he said: “The horsetrading in the Senate elections allowed PPP to win two seats in KP where they only have seven MPAs (provincial lawmakers). This sort of electoral farce raises some serious ethical questions.”
Without naming anyone, Khan told reporters in Karachi that some of his party lawmakers in the KP Assembly had “sold” votes during the Senate elections.
“I spoke to KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and we are constituting an inquiry committee to probe who sold their votes,” Khan said.
Nawaz Sharif, while talking to reporters outside the accountability court in Islamabad on Monday, said that it was important to get to the bottom of this horse-trading and “there must be an end to the use of money for buying votes.”
The PPP has not reacted to these allegations but Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari extended congratulations to the senators from Sindh on Sunday evening and said that the party filed the best candidates for the Senate elections.
Though the ruling party PML-N became the largest party after the closed-door Senate elections, the PML-N and the PPP are now in a competition, contacting allied parties to get the top slot of chairman.
The upper house of Parliament, the Senate, will elect a new chairman and deputy chairman on March 12.