Centre committed to go ahead with electoral reforms agenda: Fawad Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has asserted the government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was committed to move forward with its electoral reforms agenda to hold free, fair, transparent and credible elections.

“The 2023 general elections will be based on and only possible after reforms and there is no other way possible except this,” he said while addressing a press conference along with Minister for Science and Technology Shibli Faraz on Sunday.

The Information Minister said the government wanted to take the opposition into confidence regarding electoral reforms. “We think those elections will be better in which the government and the opposition are on the same platform,” Chaudhry said.

However, Fawad said, if the opposition refused to move beyond the cases against it then “we will be forced”. He added that the opposition leaders were “only interested in their cases” and brought the matter up whenever the government raised any issue with them.

Fawad Chaudhry pointed out that the government has presented 49 reforms, “but unfortunately, the opposition is neither accepting them nor coming up with its own proposals”.

“We cannot hold their hands. Regarding electoral reforms, the serious people among them should step forward and make their leadership realise that reforms are necessary for the next elections,” the minister added.

The minister also said the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) should distance himself from controversial matters as it was requirement of his post, otherwise he should quit and join politics. He said Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and CEC were two different things and the government had strong reservations on the conduct of the CEC.

Speaking on the occasion, Shibli Faraz too echoed his colleague, saying, “our leader’s commitment tells that 2023 elections will happen based on reforms whether anyone likes it or not.”

He said if ECP does not trust the machine prepared by the Ministry of Science then it is free to procure such a machine from anywhere. “We have no priorities regarding the use of a particular machine as we only want a technology driven election to give them credence,” he added.