News
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Ruling parties in alliance to restrict ECP’s powers: Imran* PTI chief says PPP and PML-N have once again united to block election reforms bill
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has said that all the ruling parties have once again demonstrated their agenda of muk muka (wheeling and dealing) and joined hands to restrict the power of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for imposition of articles 62 and 63 of the constitution by not implementing the election reforms bill aimed at ensuring free and fair elections.
“Asif Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz League have once again united to block election reforms bill, as the bill will directly hit their interests and would block the entry of corrupt politicians in the electoral process,” said Imran Khan while talking to a delegation from Dera Ghazi Khan headed by Khawaja Mudassir Mehmood.
Imran said that the ECP had forwarded an election reforms bills to the government to ensure free and fair elections, seeking 30 days for strict scrutiny of the nomination papers of the candidates, but Law Minister Farooq H Naek has refused to get the bill passed from parliament. “If the PPP and Nawaz League had any reservations over the articles 62 and 62, they should have removed these articles from the constitution in passage of the 18th or 19th constitutional amendments,” he said.
“Now, since these articles are very much part of the constitution, why are Nawaz Sharif and Zaradri reluctant to get them implemented by the ECP,” he argued. The PTI chief said the reforms bill demanded 30 days to scrutinise the credentials of candidates, such as tax returns, foreign visits, bank loans, utility bills, etc. “Though there is nothing wrong with these reforms, the ruling parties have made an alliance explicitly to stop the ECP from blocking corrupt politicians,” he said.
Imran said that the reluctance of the ruling parties to pass the electoral reforms bill has proved that they are a cartel of tax evaders, public banks’ and utility banks’ defaulters, and these candidates will be chucked out by the ECP in the scrutiny of their nomination papers. “They think that these reforms will block the nomination of their top leadership for their decades-long tax stealing. If the PPP and PML-N did not implement articles 62 and 63, they must be ready to face the consequences. If they have paid their taxes, they shouldn’t be worried about the reforms,” said Imran.
He added that the nation knows well that these corrupt ruling parties had also got united some days back for protection of bogus degree holding MPs and MPAs. “Once the judiciary disqualified these fake-degree-holding MPs, these parties again fielded them in several by-elections on their party tickets without feeling any shame for violating moral and legal ethics,” he remarked.
He said that the nation has witnessed ruling parties’ liking for bogus degree holders in the last five years and the people in the streets know that both the federal and Punjab governments fully supported bogus degree holders, tax evaders and corrupt lot in by elections. “But their game is over now. Their match-fixing politics is going to be defeated by the people of Pakistan in the upcoming elections. The nation is going to choose between the parties of fake degree holders, tax evaders and the real representatives of people of Pakistan,” he declared.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk