A video has surfaced of at least 20 lawmakers from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party accepting bribes to change their loyalties or sell seats ahead of the 2018 Senate elections, drawing the ire of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, who said that this “reflects the total destruction of the nation’s morality”.
They spend money to come to power & then use this pol power to make money to purchase bureaucrats, media & other decision-makers to consolidate their power & rob nation's wealth - money laundering it into offshore accts/ foreign assets/palatial residences abroad.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) February 9, 2021
In the video, PTI Members of National Assembly (MNAs) and Members of Provincial Assembly (MPAs) are seen receiving stacks of cash from Mohammad Ali Bacha, a former MPA from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Implicated in the video are Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) MPAs from the PTI, including Law Minister Sultan Mohammad Khan, Ubaid Mayar, Sardar Idrees, Deena Naaz, and Meraj Humayun.
Ubaid Mayar was expelled from the party in March 2018, after which he joined the PPP in April. In fact, Imran Khan expelled 20 MPAs following the 2018 elections for receiving Rs. 40 million in bribes in the 2018 Senate election. However, it is clear from the video that he did not expel all of the politicians involved, or that he wasn’t aware of everyone who took part.
Since the video was released on PTI’s official Twitter account, KP Law Minister Sultan Mohammad Khan has resigned, saying it is his “moral duty and obligation to withdraw from the Cabinet and offer my resignation”, in a letter shared by KP Chief Minister (CM) Mahmood Khan. CM Khan said that he had asked the law minister to “step aside and resign”.
Why we need show of hands voting in Senate?
— Waqas Ali Khan (@WAKhan_) February 9, 2021
Footage from 2018 senate elections.
PS: All PTI MPAs who sold votes were already removed by PTI pic.twitter.com/NRKaQhIK6M
Meanwhile, Ubaid Mayar has said that the video is “authentic” and held former KP CM Pervez Khattak responsible, and said each MPA was given Rs. 10 million.
The video comes just days after President Arif Alvi signed the Elections (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 to hold an open ballot for the upcoming Senate election, which is slated to be held either later this month or in March.
Likewise, the federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar, said that the video shows what people like Imran Khan have been saying for “20-30 years” and demonstrated the need to rout out “this cycle of corruption of corruption and money laundering that is debilitating the nation”.
He also denounced the opposition for criticizing PTI’s move to make the upcoming Senate election an open ballot, saying that previous leaders have also acknowledged the issue of this “bakra mandi” (goat market) and attempted to bring an end to the illicit practice. He pointed to the initiatives taken by former leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif through the Charter of Democracy.
PM Imran Khan previously said that he had initiated legal proceedings against the MPAs involved, and this latest video is likely to speed up proceedings. The extent of the damage done by this corruption is at this time unclear, but it is thought that PTI lawmakers paved the way for two PPP candidates to be elected to the Senate from KP, which is suspicious given that the PPP only had seven MPAs in the province.
At the time of the 2018 Senate election, the PTI named Deena Naaz, Nargis Ali, Nagina Khan, Sardar Idrees, Obaid Mayar, Zahid Durrani, Fouzia Bibi, Naseem Hayat, Qurban Khan, Arif Yousaf, Amjid Afridi, Abdul Haq, Javed Naseem, Yasin Khalil, Faisal Zaman and Sami Alizayi from their own party as being involved in ‘horse trading’. Also in the list were the Qaumi Watan Party’s Meraj Hamayun, the Awami Jamhoori Ittehad’s Babar Saleem, and the PML-N’s Wajih-uz-Zaman, all of whom then joined the PTI.