Islamabad, Pakistan: On January 2, 2024, a national news agency released a story claiming that PTI had planned to execute nationwide protests and attacks on state infrastructures on February 8, 2024, which is the polling day of the General Elections 2024.
The news agency’s story also indicated that events planned by PTI would be multilayered. However, no response was released from the interim government to deny or in affirmation over the story. Now information gathered by law enforcement agencies confirms that PTI has already planned events similar to those it planned on May 9, 2023.
The multilayered strategy of PTI had already achieved the results it fixed for phase I. In this phase, PTI established a claim through propaganda that the military establishment wanted to keep PTI out of the election run. This PTI rhetoric was so strong that one could listen to the echo of allegations against the state institutions while watching the majority of mainstream television channels even the state-run television.
This phase was achieved through tailoring a strategy for spreading fabricated information that the nomination papers of PTI leaders had been rejected to stop them from contesting the election although PTI deliberately and willfully left technical hitches while filling nomination forms. Even former prime minister Imran Khan filled his papers through his lawyers with his seconder and approver who were not residents of his constituency, knowing that his forms would be rejected on this fallacy because the seconder and approver must be residents of the same constituency from where the candidate is contesting an election. Of course, neither Imran Khan nor his team is so stupid enough not to know the basic rule of filling out the forms. The reason behind the cunning move was to build up a situation in which PTI could accuse state institutions of political victimization.
In the second phase, PTI would portray that its candidates are not allowed to hold public meetings for campaigning. It will announce public meetings with given dates and venues without taking official approvals for holding public meetings and then would claim disapproval of district authorities for public meetings but would claim that PTI applied for holding public meetings but was not permitted to hold such meetings. In this phase, fake applications for holding public meetings with fake rejections from civil administration would be spread on social media and PTI candidates would flood the cyberspace for these allegations.
In the third phase, PTI will claim that its polling agents have been abducted and its campaigning material/posters were removed from roads and streets.
The fourth phase depends on its decision of contesting elections or boycotting them. If contesting, PTI on election day will provide “live coverages” on social media platforms that it has managed to arrange new polling agents, and now thousands of its voters are gathering outside their polling camps and PTI candidates are far ahead of their competitors. By the end of counting votes at different polling stations, PTI will start uploading small clips showing fake Farm-45 in which PTI’s candidates would be winners from different polling stations. Before midnight, the PTI online election cell will start releasing “Election Results”. According to these results, PTI candidates would be winners, and then celebrations would be started at different spots already marked by the PTI. Since all data being provided by PTI would be different than actual unconfirmed/unofficial results being broadcasted by television channels, the PTI workers would start gathering outside television channels, protesting and claiming that the military establishment is forcing television channels to air wrong results.
By the early hours of February 9, 2024, the target of PTI workers would be state institutions with claims that a huge post-poll rigging has been initiated by state institutions like the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the armed forces. This claim would be followed by attacks on Pakistan Rangers and Police guarding the election process. The next morning PTI would try to spread unrest all over the country. Throughout this process, overseas PTI offices will keep providing fake information to media outlets. Over 500 foreign Election Observers would also get the same fake data and would start sending their reports based on data provided by the PTI to their offices, showing that PTI won the election but post-poll rigging was huge and official results are contradictory to data gathered from polling stations. It may be mentioned that PTI’s international media wing is already spreading an exclusive interview of Interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar with Independent Urdu that was reproduced by international media including Arab News on December 6, 2023, stating that former prime minister Imran Khan “faces no legal restrictions that would keep him from contesting the elections”. Though things have changed legally since his interview was published but PTI is using this interview to give the impression that the interim government had no issue with Imran Khan holding the election but the military leadership had ensured that Imran Khan must not contest General Election 2024.
According to information available with law enforcement agencies, PTI leaders were found instructing their workers that after the failure to get Imran Khan out of jail and the removal of the bat as party symbol, PTI still has an option to reject election results and to start country-wide protests on polling day. It is learned that PTI has already sent a message to its workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan to “be ready for protests”.
It is pertinent to mention that Imran Khan despite being in jail, has given signals through his social media team that no institution in the country is more important than “Haqiqi Azadi” (real freedom) and his followers must be ready to create an atmosphere of chaos and anarchy in the country. This chaos can surely be created through rioting on polling day, especially by making inflammatory speeches of women workers that would be used for propaganda videos. In messages to international media, PTI blamed Pakistan has become a Banana Republic and elections were stolen by ECP, the military, and the higher judiciary.
Since law enforcement agencies claim that they have all the information that PTI has planned to disrupt the peace in the country, the question arises, how should PTI whose past is full of anti-national activities be allowed to execute its planning,
Another question is shouldn’t this party that attacked the high judiciary and the sensitive institutions of the country be held accountable, and should such party have the right to be called a political party?
