KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), an ally of the federal government, on Tuesday announced to support the PTI-led government on the issue of electoral reforms and the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The announcement was made by MQM-P leader and Minister for Information Technology Amin-ul-Haque. He said that the MQM-P has extended its support as the federal government has ensured to table two more bills.
The bills related to the construction of Hyderabad University and Census will be tabled along with the EVMs, he added.
On Monday evening, information minister Fawad Chaudhry had said the joint parliament session had been convened at about 2 pm on Wednesday after the reservations of government allies were addressed.
All our allies, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Pakistan Mulsim League-Q (PML-Q), have agreed to support our EVM bill, said Chaudhry.
He had said this while talking to media about the claims by Rana Shamim who said former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar intervened in cases against ex-premier Nawaz Sharif and his family, and leveraged his authority to delay their bail until after the 2018 elections.
The government aims to introduce electoral reforms to ensure transparency in the next general elections to be held in 2023 as the use of EVMs and an Internet-based voting system, for overseas Pakistanis, are two main points of the reform package proposed by the government.
These reforms have been suggested in the context of the controversy-marred last general elections in 2018 whose results weren’t accepted by the opposition political parties.
The polls, like the previous ones, were held in the country while using the conventional voting system.
