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- Heated debate during Senate committee meeting on EVMs.
- Federal minister Azam Swati claims that the ECP has taken money from companies.
- Opposition senators asks Awati to give proof of his claims.
ISLAMABAD: Officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) walked out of a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs after federal minister Azam Swati levelled serious allegations against the commission of taking bribes.
The debate on the usage of electronic voting machines for the next general elections turned hostile Friday when a session of the committee was held under the chair of Senator Taj Haider.
Advisor to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan said the government will not decide which machine will be used for voting.
“This will be decided by the election commission,” he said. “The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs wrote a letter to the ECP, asking whether it needed a budget.”
Awan said the ministry had written to the ECP, asking whether it needed a budget, security or storage to hold the elections. “The ECP did not respond to the letter,” he lamented.
It was then that a livid Azam Swati accused the ECP of taking money from companies that make electronic voting machines, said a source present in the meeting.
The Opposition senators said that Swati cannot accuse a constitutional body of taking bribes, and asked the senator to provide proof to back his claim.
Swati then added that such institutions conduct all elections through rigging and should be burned down. At this, the ECP officials walked out in protest.
After the meeting was disrupted, Senator Farooq H Naek lashed out at Swati, saying that the ECP should be removed from the Constitution and the government should conduct the elections itself.
“Whenever the ECP tries to become independent, they [government] start to have a problem with it,” added Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar.
The committee’s chairperson sent Senator Kamran Murtaza to convince the ECP officials to return to the meeting.
However, State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said the ECP officials were deeply upset and would not return to the meeting.
Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar and Azam Swati also exchanged hot words, with the PPP senator asking the minister about the alleged bribe.
“Azam Swati should tell us who paid bribes to the ECP?” he asked. “Was it the PPP or the PML-N?”
A defiant Swati stuck to his guns, saying that he had said nothing wrong.
Babar Awan says bills to be approved through joint session
Meanwhile, Babar Awan criticised the chairman of the senate committee for not allowing a government member to vote during the meeting.
“Senate Parliamentary Committee chairman has deprived Senator Samina Mumtaz of exercising her right of the vote after which the government members walked out of the meeting,” he tweeted.
He said that the Opposition has been exposed after it voted against the EVM and overseas Pakistan’s right to vote.
“We will get both the bills approved from the joint session of parliament,” Babar Awan said.
EVMs cannot stop rigging, says ECP
A couple of days earlier, the ECP had said EVMs could not stop rigging in elections, as it rejected the government’s proposal to use them during polls.
“The EVMs cannot be used to conduct free and transparent elections in line with the Constitution,” the ECP had said in a document submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.
The ECP, explaining why the EVMs could not stop rigging, had said it can be hacked, the machine can be easily tampered with, and the software can be easily changed.
The machine can misuse state power, and it cannot prevent horse-trading, the ECP had maintained.
“There is no secrecy of the voter in the electronic voting machine; there is a lack of transparency; testing time before the next general election is less; stakeholders are not on board; people have not been taken into confidence,” the ECP had said, as it raised its objections.
The ECP had highlighted it did not have enough funding to roll out the machines throughout the country, and it also asked the government how can it be sure of the machine’s transparency.
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