ISLAMABAD/LAHORE - Jamiat Ullema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) has welcomed Election Commission of Pakistan’s announcement about holding of next general elections in January 2024.
The Election Commission on Thursday announced that general elections would be held in the last week of January 2024. The timeframe that was announced by the ECP today lacks a specific date for the elections. It also exceeds the Nov 6 cut-off date suggested by President Arif Alvi by more than two months.
While welcoming the development, the Secretary General of JUI-F Senator Moulana Abdul Ghafoor Haydri has maintained that the JUI always demands free and fair elections on time in the country and his party considers transparent elections quite vital for the political and economic stability of the country. Referring to the alleged mass rigging in the last general elections held in 2018, he said we have made one thing clear to the election commission that we will resist if such rigging will be repeated again in upcoming elections.
He said we wanted transparent elections in the country and demanded that the respective district elections officers be appointed as the returning officers to ensure free and fair elections.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement, the spokesperson of the party Aslam Ghouri also lauded the decision to hold the elections and termed the decision as a solution to the country’s problems. He hoped that the doubts should be ended now after the announcement of elections and said that now it is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to maintain law and order in the country. He said our party is fully prepared for the next general elections and urged his party workers to gear up election preparations. He announced further that JUI-F will soon launch Public Liaison Campaign. Meanwhile, Rana Farooq Saeed, acting President of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Central Punjab, extended a warm welcome to the recent decision by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to schedule the much-anticipated general election for January 2024.
