Raza Naqvi Ghazi Barotha
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday once again hit out at the opposition for opposing his proposal to hold next month’s an Senate elections through open ballot.
The Prime Minister said the opposition was planning to “buy” PTI lawmakers to get more of its candidates elected to the upper house.
Addressing a ceremony for the launch of a tree plantation campaign near the Ghazi Barotha dam, located at the border of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, the premier said the opposition’s demand that the Senate election be held through secret ballot reflected the “destroyed morals” of a nation.
“A mandi (market) has been set up to buy politicians and rates have been set,” the prime minister said of the upcoming polls. “This has been going on for 30 years; not all [politicians] get sold but many do.”
He noted that there was a time when the opposition parties advocated for an open ballot in the Senate elections but were today calling for the use of secret ballot.
“What caused this change? Let me tell you. First their [power show] at Minar-i-Pakistan flopped, then they failed to blackmail us over FATF legislation, then they were thinking the government would fall due to corona but Allah blessed us; now they are planning to somehow bring more of their senators by buying our people,” he said.
In a respectable society, Imran said, “no one would dare to support secret ballot when it is a known fact that bribes are given in the Senate elections”.
“A senator who is elected after spending crores of rupees, will they come to serve the people? He will come to suck the nation’s blood and make money,” he added.
Prime Minister Imran said the nation stood at a “decisive” juncture, with the Pakistani people on one side and on the other “these dacoits and their mafia”. “And victory will be of Pakistan,” he added.
Speaking about how corruption permeated in the country, the prime minister said the rulers of the past three decades not only stole money but “they also destroyed our country’s morals.” An environment was created where corruption became acceptable, Imran said, adding that there was not a single country that was prosperous despite having corruption.
“A country is destroyed when its prime minister and ministers start committing corruption,” he said, emphasising that when a leader stole state funds while in office, they also had to launder them abroad to avoid being caught. He said such actions caused a country to become desperate and reliant on loans and foreign aid. “
