Post-Polls Pakistan: Imran to ask IMF to halt aid over ‘rigged’ election
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan will write to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), demanding it to stop their support for Pakistan due to "rigged elections," party leader Ali Zafar announced yesterday.
"Imran Khan will issue a letter to IMF today. The charter of IMF, EU, and other organisations stipulates that they can function or provide loan to a country only if there's good governance," Zafar told journalists after meeting Khan at Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail.
Zafar claimed that the "most important section" of their charter is that a country should be democratic. "If there's no democracy, then neither can these institutions function in those countries, nor should they."
Senator Zafar said the people's vote was stolen in the darkness of the night. He said going to the IMF for a bailout package would be detrimental to the country without conducting the audit of the election results, reports Geo News online.
He also lamented that permission has not been granted to meet Khan's wife Bushra Bibi, who is incarcerated at the Bani Gala residence declared as sub-jail.
Meanwhile, the newly elected members of the 18th Punjab Assembly will take oath today in the inaugural session of the provincial legislature, reports Dawn online.
Out of five assemblies that went to the polls on February 8, the Punjab Assembly is the first house convening its opening session, slated to take place at 10:00am today.
Punjab Governor Baligh Ur Rehman has issued a notification in this regard. Speaker Sibtain Khan will administer the oath to the newly elected members.
The two main dynastic parties, the army-backed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), late Tuesday announced a coalition with smaller parties to govern the world's fifth most populous nation.
The United States called Wednesday on Pakistan to lift restrictions on X, formerly known as Twitter, after days of disruption following an election marred by fraud allegations.
"We are concerned by any report of restrictions on the exercise of the freedom of expression and association in Pakistan, including a partial or complete government-imposed internet shutdown," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
"We continue to call on Pakistan to respect freedom of expression and restore access to any social media that has been restricted including Twitter, now known as X," he said.
"We have and we will continue to emphasize the importance of respecting these fundamental freedoms during our engagements with Pakistani officials."
X went down in Pakistan on Saturday night after a senior government official made a public admission of vote manipulation in the February 8 election.