Current system has space for corrupt practices: Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri

PAT Chairman Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has said that the whole nation including the Election Commission knows that the candidates spent millions of rupees instead of four million and two million respectively on their electoral campaigns. Their respective political parties had budgets of billions of rupees for electronic media campaigns. The votes were also bought. Cash handouts and rations were also distributed. He said that those who spent Rs. 19 lac in one hour of the campaign are saying that they contested the whole election at the cost of Rs. 1.9 million, which is a glaring lie. He said that the current system has a lot of space to accept fraud, double-speak and lies, stating that everything is in the knowledge of the Election Commission but it cannot speak up.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri made these remarks while talking to the local media and the overseas Pakistanis after addressing a conference in Oslo. He said that the politics of hypocrisy is being done in the name of political reconciliation for last three decades. He said that those who could not give such basic facilities to the people as education, health and clean drinking water are also aching for democracy. He said that the political parties have acquired the status of organized gangs whose prime objective is not to work for the welfare of the people but to protect their vested interests. He said that the countries in the 21st century do not know what unclean drinking water, adulterated food and sub-standard medicines are but the millions of the people of Pakistan are confronted with scores of problems. He said that those who were to be held accountable have now ganged up in an effort to hold the country and the institutions of the state hostage.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that Pakistan is in acute need of a system in which the political parties hold their leaders accountable first in case of any corruption or wrongdoing before they are made to answer before the NAB or courts. He said that corruption has corrupted the entire system from top-down and bottom-up and no one is ready to take the risk of being honest in these circumstances, adding that it is due to a system based on rigging, loot and plunder.

The PAT Chairman said that our workers rendered exemplary sacrifices for reform in the system. He said that our struggle did not stop, stating that we will continue to play our role in the future as well. He said that there are people in every country that make money through foul and corrupt means and violate laws to enrich themselves but then the state makes laws to keep such characters under the check and forces them to comply with law of the land. He said that when the grip of law loosens, the state goes into the hands of the mafias and this what we see in Pakistan happening today. He said that those who committed corruption and took innocent lives have become so much powerful that they have challenged the state and its institutions. He said that unless the system is reformed, to expect it to deliver is useless.