LAHORE - Toeing the line of the PTI, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) has also rejected the electoral reforms bill saying it could not ensure free and fair elections in its present form.
PML-Q President Ch Shujat Hussain yesterday said that his party will not sign the bill till the required reforms for making the next elections transparent and clean were included in the draft bill.
In a statement issued here Thursday, he said that there was nothing new in the bill which the government wanted to present in the parliament in the name of electoral reforms.
He further stated that new bill did not empower the Chief Election Commissioner who was bound by the majority opinion of the remaining members of the commission. “This means that if majority of the members of the Commission declare any winning assembly candidate as defeated then the Chief Election Commissioner cannot provide relief to the candidate.”, he added.
Shujat said his party was being represented in the Parliamentary Committee by Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who was in Indonesia these days. “I have directed him not to sign the government bill.” he said.
He said it was regrettable that the Parliamentary Committee for Electoral Reforms had so far held 100 meetings which cost the tax payers one billion rupees. “But sadly enough, the result is zero”, he lamented.
Shujat wondered why the proceedings of these meetings had been kept secret as if the Parliamentary Committee was not contemplating nuclear reforms.
He called for making the entire proceedings of the Parliamentary committee public so that the people know what the government had been going in the name of electoral reforms.
OUR STAFF REPORTER