Shahbaz Gill asks opposition parties to support open ballot in Senate polls

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill on Thursday asked the leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to support the efforts of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) for holding Senate elections through open ballot to ensure transparency.

Addressing a news conference, Dr Shahbaz Gill said both the opposition parties failed to fulfill the promise of open balloting in the Senate elections during their governments as per the Charter of Democracy (CoD) signed by them.

He said as per section 24 of the CoD both the political parties had agreed to have identifiable ballot in the Senate polls but they did not implement it despite the full support assured by Prime Minister Imran Khan to that effect.

“Actually the two parties misled the nation on transparency in the Senate polls as they actively remained involved in the sale and purchase of legislators for the election of senators. We have no concern with running a fair election campaign but we are totally against any financial benefits involved in the Senate election.”

He said the PTI’s stance was very clear from the day first that it had ‘zero tolerance’ for ‘sale and purchase’ of parliamentarians, which unfortunately had happened in the past. 'Open markets' like the Changa Manga ones were established forest for buying the votes of legislators, he added.

He said PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had issued many statements in the past in favour of the Senate elections through ‘show of hands’. He had even warned cancellation of the membership of his party legislators if they did not vote for the party’s candidate.

He added apparently the PML-N leadership had been against horse-trading since 1995 but they themselves remained involved in the dirty game to get their candidates elected as senators.

Shahbaz said interestingly the PML-N was supporting a former prime minister in the upcoming Senate election from the Federal Capital, who was earlier 'not eligible' for them in the past.

“They even held several protests against him but now they are considering him the most suitable candidate, which is a clear example of their hypocrisy.”