LAHORE: On Friday (tomorrow), the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and five other opposition parties will begin a large-scale protest campaign against what they describe as the “worst-ever rigging” in the general elections and the by-elections that follow.
PTI Punjab office-bearers, MNAs, MPAs, and ticket holders convened virtually on Wednesday to deliberate the matter and devise a strategy for this Friday’s nationwide protests.
The meeting, which was presided over by Hammad Azhar, the party’s Central Punjab general secretary, assessed the extent to which PTI-backed candidates’ mandates had been “ripped” from them in every national and provincial assembly constituency in Punjab.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Punjab administration are accused by the party of masterminding the recent electoral rigging.
Speaking at the event, Mr. Azhar claimed that in order to turn the successes of Sunni Ittehad Council candidates endorsed by the PTI into defeats, the Maryam Nawaz government, ECP, police, and other state institutions used deceit and manipulation to change the results.
Shaukat Basra, the Punjab Information Secretary for the PTI, claimed that the nation’s aspirations had been dashed by by-election manipulation. He believed that the country will undoubtedly rise up to exact revenge for their stolen mandate, as the Constitution had been repeatedly violated.
PTI Sindh leader Haleem Adil Sheikh, meanwhile, announced at a press conference in Karachi that the party had asked the Sindh High Court for permission to hold tomorrow’s protest and that they intended to hold a second rally on May 5 next to Mazar-i-Quaid.
He recalled how the government apparatus had previously been utilized to restrict PTI’s political activity by denying them permission to hold rallies or placing the city under lockdown.
