Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan on Tuesday welcomed the government’s move to hold the forthcoming Senate elections through a show of hands to prevent horse-trading.
“It is a good proposal and we welcome it,” the PTI leader told reporters before leaving for Dubai on a private visit.
Khan, whose party is contesting the elections to be held on March 5, said he was a strong critic of the policies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
But, he said, the proposal for changing the mode of polling in the Senate elections was a rare good move by the government.
A constitutional amendment is required for the election of senators by a show of hands and the prime minister has tasked ministers to contact political parties for evolving consensus on the issue.
However, many in political circles believe the move for change is not feasible as only ten days are left before the Senate elections in which members of provincial assemblies form an electoral college.
The main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said it was against horse-trading not only in the Senate but in all elections and would welcome measures in this regard.
“However, the government decision to amend the constitution for the Senate elections is a hasty move bereft of deep thought... and seems aimed at political point scoring,” a PPP spokesman said.
PTI members in the National Assembly, the directly elected lower house of parliament, have not attended sessions of the House for months, while their resignations submitted late last year have not been accepted by the Speaker.
Khan said the boycott would continue until the PTI demand for a judicial commission to investigate rigging allegations in the 2013 general elections that brought the PML-N into power is met.
The PTI leader ended in December a prolonged sit-in by party members and supporters close to the parliament in Islamabad, following a massacre of students by Taliban assailants at an army public school in Peshawar.
But he has warned that the protest movement could be resumed if the government continues its procrastination over a judicial probe into the alleged electoral fraud.
