Pakistan's 2024 polls rigged to silence millions, PTI's Bukhari tells US panel

• Bukhari says constituency votes changed.
• He says PTI won over 170 seats in polls.
• Votes "manipulated" within 24–72 hours.
  

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Syed Zulfikar Bukhari has told a United States congressional body that the country’s 2024 general elections were “engineered to silence the democratic voices of millions,” calling them the “most brutally rigged elections in Pakistan’s history.”

Speaking before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress, Bukhari — a former aide to ex-prime minister Imran Khan — outlined what he described as systematic electoral manipulation and political suppression.

“Let me start with the event that shattered whatever remained of Pakistan’s democratic facade — the general elections of 8 February 2024,” he told the panel. “The rigging began long before election day itself.”

He detailed a range of alleged irregularities: the removal of PTI’s electoral symbol (the cricket bat), disqualification of candidates, banning of rallies, destruction of banners, and restrictions on party flags. PTI leaders, he said, were jailed, exiled, or forced into hiding.

Despite these obstacles, Bukhari said the Pakistani people turned out in large numbers and “voted for change.” According to him, independent observers and data sources have shown that PTI-affiliated independent candidates secured between 170 to 180 seats in parliament.

However, Bukhari claimed the results were altered within 24 to 72 hours, depriving PTI of the mandate to form a government. “There were constituencies where population figures were [inflated overnight] — in one case, a seat with 400 registered voters recorded 450,000 votes in the final Form-47,” he alleged.

He stressed that the manipulation was deliberate and widespread, stating: “Let me be very clear — Pakistan’s 2024 elections were neither free nor fair. They were engineered to silence the democratic voices of millions.”