- Rules out any political motive whatsoever for suspension of internet, cellphone services
- Says despite security challenges public exercised right to vote in elections
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Saturday said that the voters exercised their constitutional right to vote in elections, and by and large, they voted for their favorite candidates despite security challenges.
“It is the beauty of a vibrant democracy, and in Pakistan, it is a transformational democracy, also a brave democracy, considering the security challenges,” he opined during in an interview with Turkish broadcaster TRT.
The caretaker premier said despite security challenges, the people voted for their favorite candidates. He said the results showed that it was, by and large, a free and fair exercise.
To a question, he said that the next parliament would decide to hand over the power to that party who would meet the required magical number to form the new government.
The prime minister said that their responsibility as a caretaker government was to ensure security, and ahead of the elections, two terrorist incidents in Balochistan province occurred, which reminded the people of the real-time threat.
The government always had more responsibility when it came to security, he asserted.
Responding to a question about the suspension of the mobile services, he said that to face the security challenge, they had to block the communication channels; otherwise, they did not have any political motive whatsoever.
Elaborating his viewpoint, he said that considering that the terrorists would confine themselves to these two provinces would be a fallacy, there might be other potential attacks in other provinces.
He said they did their best to secure them. It was only mobile services that were suspended while the internet service was available.
He did not think that this suspension had hindered the huge democratic exercise. The results showed that it was, by and large, a free and fair exercise.
The caretaker prime minister said that even though people went out and peacefully exercised their right to vote, for the time being, he didn’t have figures as to how many people had voted.
Probably it would have been a record, which meant that everyone was allowed and their votes were counted. So else was democracy, he added.
Two provinces were badly hit by terrorist attacks, and if it was kept in mind, people came out and bravely voted for their candidates, which was not usual but rather quite unusual, he opined.
