News & Updates

ISLAMABAD: Former additional secretary of the Election commission of Pakistan Muhammad Afzal Khan has alleged that the general elections in May 2013 were rigged and that the people’s mandate was ‘stolen’. He said that former chief justices Iftikhar Chaudhry and Tassadduq Jillani were also involved in rigging the vote. Khan made the allegation during an interview on a private television channel, in which he said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not win the elections in a free and fair manner. He said during the interview that the Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim had shut his eyes on the rigging. The former additional secretary said that the Election Commission had been put under tremendous pressure during the alleged rigging. Khan said that judges were also involved in fixing the vote and that hearings of voter fraud was deliberately delayed. Reacting to the interview, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran khan commended Afzal Khan and...

Islamabad, Pakistan:  Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday said there was no justification for the protests as he has accepted all constitutional demands of protesters after opposition leader Imran Khan asked him to quit for 30 days to allow a probe into alleged rigging in the 2013 polls. “Instead of wasting their energies in protests, the demonstrators should play their role for the progress and development of the country,” Mr Sharif said in his first public comments after Mr Khan sought his resignation. There is no justification for continuing the protest after the government acceded to all the constitutional demands of the participants of the sit-ins, he said during a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Member of National Assembly Hamza Shahbaz. In his latest demand after the government outrightly rejected the proposal to end the crippling political deadlock, Mr Khan asked Mr Sharif to quit for 30 days to allow an independent probe into allege...

Make history, don’t become one Let’s forget about who is right wrong and who is wrong. No judgments, no prejudice against anyone. Let’s concentrate on only two questions: How can this situation be resolved amicably; and why it is necessary to do it as soon as possible? Are the demands legitimate? Is the modus operandi adopted for this purpose constitutional? Are there 7,000 people present at D Chowk or does the number of assembling people runs into hundreds of thousands in the evenings? These and such other questions seem to have lost their relevance at the moment. The only relevant concern of the people seems to be that we are at the brink and we must address the situation on ground as soon and as realistically as is possible. How can the Gordian knot be made loose? It’s simple through give and take by the opposing parties. Everyone is telling that. But what can that ‘give and take’ be? That’s easier said than explained. But even then, there are literally more than o...