Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. PHOTO: ARCHIVE
ISLAMABAD:
The Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz Aaeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP) on Saturday criticized the government and state institutions, alleging that the country’s constitutional order, electoral system and judicial authority have become meaningless.
At a press conference, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar and Taimur Jhagra warned that the country was descending into political chaos, where voting rights, judicial independence and democratic norms had been compromised beyond recognition.
Khokhar lamented that the recent by-elections have dealt a fatal blow to public confidence in the electoral system. “Whatever happened in the by-elections has stripped the Pakistani people of their right to vote.”
The opposition leader further accused the government of dismantling constitutional safeguards and managing the state in a way that even the IMF “has exposed in the middle of the market.”
“In a country where corruption ranges between Rp5 and Rp6 trillion, what more can you expect?”
Khokhar pointed to developments in Azad Jammu and Kashmir as a harbinger of broader instability.
“In Azad Kashmir, people were herded like sheep and goats to another party. There is no opposition left there, and when that happens, the public takes the system into their own hands,” he said, warning: “Do not push Pakistan to a similar point.”
Khokhar said jailed PTI leader Imran Khan was “a political reality” and “the most popular leader in the country at the moment”, stating that the legitimacy of the system could not be restored by ignoring him.
“The value of law books has been reduced to nothing. There is an atmosphere of total uncertainty in the country,” he lamented, urging the rulers to “lead the nation towards peace.”
On the occasion, Taimur Jhagra cited international scrutiny to highlight the situation. “Just yesterday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern in his report,” he said, adding that the report showed “astonishment at the lack of judicial independence.”
Lamenting the sorry state of the judiciary, Jhagra said, “Every day we say that the courts are not doing their job properly.”
He also attacked the treatment given to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leaders. “Our prime minister was branded a terrorist and drug trafficker,” he lamented. “You can censor the media, but you can’t censor people’s minds.”
Pointing specifically to NA-18, KP’s largest constituency, Jhagra presented voting statistics to question the transparency of the by-elections.
“The constituency has 602 polling stations. Shehrnaz Omar Ayub Khan [wife of Omar Ayub Khan] he received 149,782 votes, while Babar Nawaz got 124,686. “Two out of three electoral colleges were won by Shernaz Omar Ayub,” he said.
However, he regretted that “forms 45, 46 and 47 have not been published or uploaded on the ECP website.”
“We want elections in which the vote cast at the polls is the vote that comes out.” He said the Election Commission of Pakistan had “published only one sheet, Form 47”, adding that “Form 47 has become the worst insult in our political vocabulary”.
He questioned the motive behind spending billions on an election that “no one trusts” and lamented that the PTI could not even campaign in Lahore, while “PML-N and Captain Safdar campaigned as they pleased.”
