People with transparent character should come to assemblies: PAT Secretary General

PAT Secretary General Khurram Nawaz Gandapur has said that Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri presented a comprehensive package of electoral reforms on December 23, 2012, eleven years ago and raised a slogan of saving the state, not politics. He said if the electoral reform package presented by Dr Qadri was implemented, the nation would not have had to go through the crisis of instability and chaos it is going through right now.

Khurram Nawaz Gandapur said that the people with questionable character disrespected Parliament and democracy through their conduct. He underlined the need of having people with conscience and good repute in the assemblies who could rise above their self-interests and work for the betterment of the country.

PAT Secretary General said that the hundreds of thousands of people, who congregated at the historic Minar-e-Pakistan on December 23, 2012, expressed their disapproval of the electoral system and even conducted a peaceful march towards Islamabad to press for their demands for electoral reforms. He said that the then government signed a deal committing itself to the implementation of the reform package but unfortunately it walked back from its promise. He said that the nation's progress through the conduct of fair, free and transparent polls and the enforcement of democratic values.

“There can be no improvement in the system as long as the People’s Representation Act and all allied provisions of law are not implemented in letter and spirit. The slogan of the historic public meeting of December 23, 2012 was, “let us save the state, not the system,” he concluded.