By Sajjad Hussain
Islamabad, Jan 25 (PTI) Pakistan’s former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday said every election since independence was “stolen” and warned that the general elections slated for February 8 will “damage” the country as the poll process is “rigged.”
Abbasi, who was the prime minister between 2017 and 2018, asked Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and caretaker premier Anwaarul Haq Kakar to ensure that the upcoming elections were “non-controversial.”
“We have stolen every election since 1947. A country where the public’s opinion is not respected can never make progress,” Abbasi said addressing the media at Rawalpindi.
“The masses are disappointed with the election process. You still have time to make this process uncontroversial,” he said.
“Elections are a constitutional necessity … but the political leadership must make the elections meaningful and a way to solve the country’s problems. The political leadership has failed in this action,” the former prime minister, once a leading figure in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said.
Abbasi, who won several elections on the PML-N ticket, is not contesting this time after developing differences with his party. Responding to a question about why he was not contesting, he said the upcoming electoral exercise was “useless.”
“With each passing day, I become more satisfied that I made the right decision. Such an election, which does not give the country anything other than incitement and flaws; at least I did not play a part in this misdeed,” he said.
He also blamed the political leadership for failing to perform and coming up to the expectations of the people and said the only way to move forward was for the country’s political, military, and judicial leadership to come together and determine the path ahead.
Talking to reporters outside the anti-corruption department office in Rawalpindi, where he faced interrogation in the case about embezzlement in road projects, Abbasi said the election should not be made controversial as polls are a “revered process and making it controversial would damage the country.”
Pointing towards alleged rigging in elections, he said the system did not work in 2018 and neither will it work now, according to Geo News.
The three largest parties in Pakistan had failed to deliver as neither had any resolution to any of the problems and also predicted that more than one political party would be created in Pakistan soon, he said.
Commenting on the embezzlement case against him, the ex-premier said the notice against him was sent to his spokesperson, instead of him, which, he said, was a way of harassing a politician in the election process. “Imagine, how those contesting the polls were being treated if someone who is not even contesting the elections is being treated like this.”
The former prime minister also announced that he had not quit politics but would decide his political future after the February 8 polls. However, he rejected the idea of setting up a new political party.
Abbasi became prime minister in August 2017 after Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court and served until May 2018.
He resigned as PML-N’s senior vice president in February 2023 after Maryam Nawaz, daughter of Nawaz Sharif, was given the key responsibility.
