ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders have pointed out “systematic rigging” in the intra-party elections recently held in the western Canadian province of Alberta.
The intra-party elections, held in Calgary, were supposed to be a contest among two groups – Team Insaaf, headed by Syed Seerat Abbas, and Team Pakistan, headed by Gul Rehman Khan. Both sides had over 1,200 votes – the biggest figure in any city or region in a foreign country.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Canadian branch of the ruling party transferred over 72,000.00 Canadian dollars to the party’s head office in Pakistan after the collection of 60 Canadian dollars from each of the 1,200 members, registered with the party’s overseas branch.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic and not so favourable financial position, the Canada-based party leadership collected and transferred a huge amount from Calgary just to support their party and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision for a new Pakistan.
In return, Gul Rehman said that the community has to face a division after a rigging by the election committee which clearly favoured Seerat Abbas to win in the intra-party polls just to get upper executive seats at the national level.
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Overseas Pakistani Forum (OPF) Canada Chairman Burhan Khan said that nations are not brought down by war or natural disasters, but they are brought down by dishonesty, manipulation, corruption and divisions. “We know road to power is full of pain,” he said, adding that those who are power hungry do not care about anyone and anything as they just want to cling to power.
He said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. “We the overseas members ask our party’s higher command to investigate this matter immediately in order to avoid further division among the community and declare this election null and void,” he said and demanded fresh elections under a third-party surveillance.
“PTI is not among those parties which support corrupts and corrupt practices,” Burhan said, and asking party leaders to the centre to avoid interference. “We are all educated people and we know about the ‘centre of corruption’ in any party,” he said. Gul Rehman pointed out that the election commission turned their blind eye and deaf ears to party members.
He said that Team Pakistan candidates kept on sending email and phone calls to the election commission, but no action was taken and as of today PTI members have been given nothing but runaround. “Their (election panel) motto is ‘when money comes your way, you do not ask questions’ and offer no remedies to correct the wrong doing,” he added.
