PPP rejects election results, but will form opposition in National Assembly: Bilawal

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto on Friday announced that his party rejects the election results and criticised the failure of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold fair and transparent elections.

Furthermore, the PPP chairman asked the chief election commissioner to resign immediately.

He, however, said that PPP will play its role as an opposition in the parliament setting an example for others on how "opposition [politics] is done".

"Free and fair elections are every Pakistani’s right and on that front we are not willing to compromise," he said, adding that PPP will take the matter forward in the parliament.

Bilawal confirmed that the party is set to form the government in Sindh. He put forth Syed Murad Ali Shah's name as their chosen candidate for the post of chief minister.

Earlier in the day, PPP announced that it will not attend the multi-party conference (MPC) called by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and PML-N to devise a joint strategy over alleged rigging in the 2018 general elections.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told  neither party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari nor co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari will join the MPC called in Islamabad.

He said the party did not see the need to attend it when its own leadership was gathering in Karachi to discuss the issue. "The PPP leadership will devise its own political strategy [over alleged poll irregularities]," Babar said.

The PML-N had on Thursday decided to take all major parties, including the PPP and obviously excluding the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, on board to formulate a joint strategy to take up the rigging issue that it believes has deprived it of majority in the coming National Assembly.

PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb had told Dawn that any decision whether or not to boycott parliament would be taken after consulting other parties at the MPC.

However, she hastened to add that unlike the PTI, the PML-N was not a party that could ever do politics which was detrimental to the country.

“We will (try to) form a ‘united political front’ to take up the issue of rigging. All political parties will gather in Islamabad on Friday to formulate a joint strategy against rigging. We will present constituency-wise evidence of rigging and issue a white paper on rigging after the MPC,” she said.

“Rigging had been committed in a bid to ‘select ladla’ (Imran Khan),” she said and called upon the authorities concerned to hold an inquiry to ascertain why the result transmission system of the Election Commission of Pakistan had broken down.

“Why were polling agents expelled and not given Form 45?” she asked.

The MMA too rejected the results outright, calling for declaring the entire electoral exercise “null and void”.