–Premier says show of hands instead of secret ballot will end the use of money for Senate polls
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday announced the federal government has decided to replace the traditional secret balloting with a “show of hands” for the upcoming Senate election in March 2021 to ensure its credibility.
In a televised address, the prime minister said that the time had come to introduce electoral reforms to end the commonplace practice of losing parties claiming rigging and rejecting the results of polls.
During his address, PM Imran observed how everyone says that “money is exchanged in Senate election” and recalled that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had expelled 20 of its own parliamentarians from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly for their involvement in horse-trading during the 2018 election for the Upper House.
“After the 2013 general elections, when every party raised concerns about rigging, I advocated for free and fair elections so no one would question the results of future polls,” the premier recalled.
“We have devised electoral reforms through a committee comprising Azam Swati, Babar Awan, Pervaiz Khattak, and Shafqat Mahmood,” he said, listing the proposals.
“We want a show of hands [for the Senate elections] instead of a secret ballot,” he said, observing that in the past 30 years it had become commonplace for the votes to be bought and sold through bribes and corruption.
With a show of hands, he said, everyone would be able to see which lawmaker voted for what candidate in the polls. “This will end the use of money for Senate polls,” he added.
Additionally, the government would introduce a system for overseas Pakistan nationals to enable them to cast their vote electronically. “Overseas Pakistanis are a great asset of the country and they should have the right to participate in the electoral process,” the premier said.
The government, he said, will also introduce electronic voting in the country. Our investigations, he added, have found that the best system, using technology and used globally, is electronic voting.
“We are talking to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and using data collected by NADRA [National Database & Registration Authority], we will bring about a system that will ensure the best elections ever conducted in Pakistan,” he further said.
“I want Pakistan to have the type of elections in which whoever loses the polls accepts their results. In the 2018 polls, there were only 102 petitions alleging electoral rigging—which was less than that of 2013. Of these, 24 were from the PPP [Pakistan People’s Party] and PML-N [Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz]. PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] had 23,” the premier said.
“We are bringing this in because we want free and fair elections,” he stressed, noting that sitting governments never tried to bring about such reforms because they had the resources to buy votes.
“I said on the very first day of my premiership that I was willing to examine any allegations of electoral rigging. But after the first meeting of a committee formed to investigate their claims, under the chairmanship of Pervaiz Khattak, the opposition did not attend any further meetings,” he said.
“Now it is up to the rest of the parties whether they will support this constitutional amendment because a two-thirds majority is needed which we [the PTI-led coalition government] do not have.”
Noting that the PTI, during its 126-day-long sit-in in 2014, had called for a reform in the electoral process, Khan said, after its conclusion, a judicial commission led by retired Supreme Court (SC) judge, Justice Nasirul Mulk, had been set up to examine rigging allegations.
“We provided all the evidence to the Supreme Court and it was deliberated upon for several weeks. The judicial commission advised a series of steps to ensure the 2018 elections would not have any rigging,” he said, as he recalled how he had fought for neutral umpires while he was a cricketer to curb the practice of teams crying foul when they played tours in foreign countries.
He also said that he had wanted to brief the public to thank the people of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) for voting for the PTI, as well as to announce the reforms proposed by his government.
The prime minister concluded his address by once again thanking the people of GB. “The conduct of the polls displayed maturity, which bodes very well for the future of Pakistan’s democratic process,” he said.
“I promise them once again that we will grant them provisional provincial status in accordance with UN resolutions. Our government will also try its hardest to see the potential of this area fully realised to improve the lives of its people,” he added.
