RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan will write a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asking it to stop its support to Pakistan over “rigged elections”, party leader Ali Zafar announced on Thursday.
“Imran Khan will send a letter to the IMF today. The charter of the IMF, EU and other organizations states that they can only operate or lend to a country subject to good governance,” Zafar told reporters after meeting Khan at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.
Zafar argued that the “most important part” of their charter is that the country should be democratic. “If there is no democracy, then even these institutions cannot and should not work in these countries.”
“The basic pillar of democracy is free and fair elections. However, the whole world saw how the national mandate was stolen. Leaving aside the pre-poll rigging, in the post-poll machination the victory was taken away from the winning PTI candidates.”
Senator Zafar said the voice of the people was stolen in the darkness of the night. He said going to the IMF for a bailout would hurt the country without auditing the election results.
He also lamented that permission was not granted to meet Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, who is incarcerated in the Bani Gala residence declared a sub-prison.
This is not the first time that the opposition party PTI has tried to influence the IMF deal as in 2022 its former leader Shaukat Tarin told the then PTI finance ministers from KP and Punjab that they “should tell the IMF that the commitment cannot be met” citing the recent devastation caused by floods in the country.
Last year, Pakistan secured a $3 billion short-term program from the IMF to help avert a sovereign debt default. It’s due next month, and securing a new and much larger one is widely seen as a priority for the new administration.
After the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and their allies reached an agreement to form a coalition government, the PTI and some other political parties rejected the election altogether and declared nationwide protests.
The PTI demanded that the election results be released on the basis of Form 45 – single polling station results instead of Form 47 – consolidated constituency results – as the party claims it was rigged and its independent candidates won a simple majority in the national assembly year.
