Imran Khan wants IMF aid halted over 'rigged' election

•  Basic pillar of democracy is free, fair election: Senator Zafar.
• “Imran Khan will issue letter to IMF today," he says.
• PTI leader says permission not granted to meet Bushra Bibi. 

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan will write a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), demanding it to stop their support for Pakistan due to “rigged elections,” party leader Ali Zafar announced on Thursday.

“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.”

“The basic pillar of a democracy is a free and fair election. However, the entire world saw how the nation’s mandate was stolen. Let’s leave pre-poll rigging aside, in post-poll rigging, victory was snatched from PTI’s winning candidates.”

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.

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.

This isn’t the first time that the opposition party PTI will try to affect the IMF deal as in 2022, its ex-leader Shaukat Tarin had told PTI's then-finance ministers of KP and Punjab that they should “tell the IMF that the commitment made to them cannot be fulfilled” and to cite the recent devastation caused by floods in the country as the reason behind it.

Pakistan secured a short-term $3 billion programme from the IMF last year which helped to avert a sovereign debt default. It will run out next month and securing a new and much bigger one is widely seen as the priority for the new administration.

With the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and their allies striking a deal to form a coalition government, the PTI and some other political parties have altogether rejected the elections and announced country-wide protests.

The PTI has demanded election results be issued based on Form 45 — the results of a single polling station instead of Form 47 — the consolidated results of a constituency — as the party says the latter was tampered with and its independent candidates won a simple majority in the National Assembly.