Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Wednesday that victory of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates, including Hafeez Shaikh and Fauzia Arshad, would be the last nail in the coffin of the opposition’s dying politics.

Both PTI candidates from Islamabad will easily win the Senate election, he told a news conference in the federal capital. The opposition has realised that Hafeez Shaikh will win therefore they have started looking towards Fazlur Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, in the hope that his followers like madrassah students will rescue them, he said. He said that PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz failed at political front and Bilawal Bhutto in the parliament. The opposition has failed to sell political slogans and is once again talking about launching a long march, he said.

Fawad claimed that everyone knew what the opposition parties did to the country’s economy. “The country was bearing the debt burden of Rs6,000 billion from 1947 to 2006 and this debt increased to Rs30,000 billion from 2008 to 2018 during the decade of darkness,” he said. He observed that the Senate election featured the major contest before the next general elections. 

Fawad said, “We have 181 members on our side and this number is expected to increase tomorrow. As many as 176 of the 181 members met the prime minister at the luncheon today,” he said. The minister asked the ECP to take notice of the brawl in the Sindh Assembly when a member attempted to speak.

Fawad termed the ECP decision to conduct the Senate election on the old pattern due to shortage of time a weak argument when the government offered technological assistance to make the election transparent. Work is not limited to distribution and collection of ballot papers, it is important to make the election transparent, he observed. 

The Supreme Court has clearly stated that the Senate election can be open for the ECP to ensure transparency, but not for the political parties. The court suggested use of technology in the election to bring transparency, he said. He said the ECP should have used the technology available in the country to make the election transparent.