Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) president and National Assembly Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday turned down a suggestion by Prime Minister Imran Khan to employ electronic voting machines (EVM) to restore credibility of elections.
Prime Minister Imran on Saturday once again asked the opposition to select EVM models “available to us to restore the credibility of our elections”.
Shehbaz took to twitter and said the whole world, including the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), has already turned down the concept of EVM.
He tweeted that such important national decisions cannot be implemented on the orders or whims of a person.
He said electoral reforms can only be introduced with a consensus and the PML-N had introduced reforms in the past with consensus.
The PML-N president said a historic and consensus document signed by all the stake holders is still there. When the opposition talks of economic reforms and gives suggestions, they are insulted in the name of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
Shehbaz recalled that the PML-N undertook historic political reforms in 2018 with the consultation of all political parties. The PML-N government had okayed reforms to electoral laws making it mandatory for political parties to allot five per cent of their tickets to women candidates.
Prime Minister Imran has on several occasions expressed his desire to introduce electoral reforms so that “no one raise objection and winners and losers accept the result.”
He said the staff reading and counting votes manually may commit mistakes as they work all night. When commit mistake, it’s not easy to trace the mistake and no easy way.
But in the past, the opposition has rejected these proposals and has said it would bring its own set of proposals for a comprehensive reform of the electoral process.
Opposition leaders explained that while they will not engage with the government as a matter of principle, they will continue to proceed with their parliamentary duties as well as their work in the committees.
