Pakistan President Arif Alvi has come under scathing attack from ministers of the ruling coalition for allegedly acting on former premier Imran Khan’s advice to put pressure on the country’s electoral watchdog to announce poll dates for provincial assemblies in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
President Alvi, who is from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, on Saturday invited Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja for an urgent meeting on February 20 to discuss poll dates for the two assemblies. The letter was written after the president did not receive a response from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on his previous letter written on February 8. In the second letter, the president expressed his displeasure over the “apathy and inaction” on the part of the electoral watchdog.
In separate statements, the interior, defence and law ministers criticised the president and reminded him of his constitutional position.
