Chaos in Pakistan: Imran Khan Writes Letter to IMF to Halt Aid Amid Poll Rigging Allegations

Rawalpindi – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan and founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan said on Friday that he has written a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) requesting the global lender body to hold an audit of the February 8 Pakistan General Election before they approve any loan for Islamabad. In his statment to the media, the former Prime Minister warned that the loan would lead to more poverty and insisted that until there is a substantial investment in the country, the loans would continue to increase, Geo News reported. 

“The letter has been written to the IMF and will be dispatched today. If the country gets a loan in such a situation, then who will return it?” Khan said in his message to the media on Friday. The update from the cricketer-turned-politician came a day after PTI senator Ali Zafar announced that the party founder wants to write a letter to raise an alarm. However, it is still not clear if the PTI founder's letter would ultimately lead to the desired results. Meanwhile, the former Finance Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar said that the letter actually holds “no significance” and insisted that the action of the PTI  founder is against the “country's national interest”. “Writing anything for personal gain is shameful. PTI founder’s letter will have no significance,” Dar, a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), told media outside the Punjab Assembly, Geo News reported. 

Political stability is needed before economic stability

Meanwhile, in his scathing attack against the Sharif brothers, Khan insisted that political stability should be brought to Pakistan before the country even looked for economic stability. He even insisted that these institutions were destroyed by Nawaz Sharif's “selection”. “Institutions, NAB everything was destroyed to select Nawaz Sharif. I was made zero for Nawaz Sharif then rigging was done in elections,” the former Pakistani premier averred. He went on to comment on Rawalpindi commissioner Liaqat Ali Chatha's rigging allegations and their withdrawal. “Commissioner was picked up and assaulted, now his software has been updated," the PTI founder remarked. 

The Rawalpindi stirred major headlines after he claimed that he “oversaw” the rigging of polls that took place in Rawalpindi. “We converted the losers into winners with 50,000 votes margin,”  Chatha admitted in a rare press conference. In response to his allegations, top political parties like PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and others demanded an independent investigation on the matter. However, things took a different turn when the Rawalpindi commissioner on Thursday withdrew all his allegations related to rigging in the elections. He insisted that he was “extremely ashamed, embarrassed”, and claimed that he made the move in coordination with a PTI leader. "I take full responsibility for my actions and surrender myself before the authorities for any kind of legal action," Chatha said in a statement to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).