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Imran Khan criticizes the PTI’s unfair playing field
According to the PTI founder, conducting polls under such circumstances would be “farce” in a piece for a British publication.
ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and a former prime minister, has bemoaned the absence of a level playing field for his party as the nation approaches a pivotal general election that is scheduled for next month, claiming that the establishment is not prepared to offer one.
He went on to say that conducting polls under such conditions would be a “farce”.
Read More: Imran Khan and Fawad Chaudhry have been charged with contempt of court by ECP
The former prime minister made his remarks in an essay he wrote while being held captive in the Adiala jail for the British magazine The Economist.
“One thing is evident from the way my party and I have been treated since a ridiculous vote of no confidence in April 2022: the establishment, which includes the army, security services, and civil bureaucracy, is not willing to give PTI a level playing field, let alone one at all.”
According to the former prime minister, the US was “becoming agitated with my push for an independent foreign policy and my refusal to provide bases for its armed forces,” which is why the establishment “engineered” the removal of his government “under pressure from America.”
Read More: ‘Illegal Nikah case’ Imran, Bushra Bibi to be indicted next week
“I believe that the American official’s message was to the effect of: pull the plug on Khan’s prime ministership through a vote of no confidence, or else,” Imran writes in the article, adhering to his cipher narrative. The former COAS General Bajwa had “been working on our allies and parliamentary backbenchers for several months to move against us,” he says, adding that “within weeks our government was toppled.”
Regarding this claim, The Economist has included a disclaimer at the end of the piece, stating that the US State Department and the Pakistani government “deny Mr. Khan’s allegations of American interference in Pakistani politics.”
Khan claims that both the federal and provincial caretaker governments are “constitutionally illegal.” He believes that people are “sceptical” about the elections on February 8 because they “have been denied the same in two provinces.”
The popularity that the PTI gained after Imran was removed is also discussed in the article: “In the following few months, the PTI won 28 out of 37 by-elections as people flocked onto the streets to protest against this regime change.” Imran claims that those who had removed him were “unnerved” by his popularity.
“The speed showed it was pre-planned,” Imran wrote, adding that the incident on May 9, 2023 was a “false-flag operation” that was “falsely blamed on [the] PTI.”
The article also claims that Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, has “made an agreement with the establishment whereby it will back his acquittal and put its weight behind him in the next elections.”
Khan writes that he is still “incarcerated, in solitary confinement, on absurd charges that include treason,” reiterating that the PTI is not being allowed to campaign freely. Even local worker conventions cannot be held by the few leaders of our party who are still free and not hiding.
Even if elections were conducted in this circumstance, Imran claims they would be “a disaster and a farce.”
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