ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday accepted an offer made by Prime Minister Imran Khan to the opposition for electoral reforms and said that the opposition party was ready for the electoral reforms and it was also ready in the past.
“The PML-N has accepted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer of electoral reforms. The electoral process should be improved as much as possible. We are ready for talking to the federal government for electoral reforms,” said senior PML-N leader and Punjab President Rana Sanaullah.
Speaking to media in Lahore, Sanaullah said that there should be consensus on how to improve the electoral process as much as possible. The PML-N leader criticised the government for delaying the electoral reforms and said that whenever the PML-N sat with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in the national interest, the government created a drama stating that the opposition was asking for a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
Sanaullah said that his party never asked PM Imran for an NRO.
“Whenever we took the step of dialogue or negotiation with him, our aim was in the national interest,” he said.
The PML-N leader said that the government had been ignoring the offer made by the opposition for a national dialogue for the past three years.
“Despite coming to power, the ruling party people considered themselves still in the opposition. Unless they negotiate with the opposition, how will the government move forward and work on national interests,” argued Sanaullah.
It merits mention here that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has also accepted the offer of Prime Minister Imran, saying that talks could only be fruitful if the establishment had no role in electoral system.
“If the role of the establishment is lost, then we are ready for electoral reforms and in that case the reforms will be beneficial,” he said while addressing a presser in Karachi two days back.
It should be noted that while reacting to the government’s offer of electoral reforms to the opposition, PML-N leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had said that the issue is not electoral reform and rather the issue was to respect the vote.
“There needs to be giving priority to respect the vote. Everyone knows that Who are the people who are violating the dignity of the vote and stealing the public mandate? If the problem of vote fraud is not solved then electronic voting machines will also fail like the RTS system,” Nawaz had said.
