Pakistan strongly objected Wednesday to a U.S. congressional resolution calling for an investigation into interference and fraud allegations related to Pakistan’s February 8 parliamentary elections.
“We believe that the timing and context of this particular resolution does not align well with the positive dynamics of our bilateral ties,” said the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad.
The statement said the resolution “stems from an incomplete understanding of the political situation and electoral process” in Pakistan.
The rebuke came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted (368-7) to approve a resolution urging “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s election.
The U.S. lawmakers also condemned what they described as “attempts to suppress” participation of Pakistanis in their democracy “through harassment, intimidation, violence, arbitrary detention, restrictions on access to the internet and telecommunications.”
In its response, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry stated that Islamabad was committed to “the values of constitutionalism, human rights, and the rule of law in pursuance of our own national interest.” It urged the U.S. Congress to play its role in strengthening bilateral relations and mutual collaboration benefiting both countries.
“We believe in constructive dialogue and engagement based on mutual respect and understanding. Such resolutions are, therefore, neither constructive nor objective.”
Khawaja Asif, the Pakistani defense minister, also went on social media platform X to criticize the U.S. lawmakers’ call for an impartial election probe.
“This is from the country that spent the 20th century overthrowing democratically elected governments, and currently facilitating the Palestinian genocide,” Asif wrote. “Let’s look at their history of irregularities in 2016 & 2020 elections, both Democrats and Republicans accused of foreign intervention and rigging, how about asking U.N. for probe.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller declined to comment specifically on the resolution while addressing a regular news conference in Washington.
“Our most senior officials, including Secretary [of State] Antony Blinken and Ambassador Donald Blome [in Islamabad], have consistently, both privately and publicly, urged Pakistan to respect the rights of its people and live with its constitutional and international obligations,” Miller said.
“We continuously urge the government of Pakistan to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, religion, as well as the rights of marginalized populations such as women and religious minorities,” he said.
Analysts, such as Washington-based Michael Kugelman, said the resolution would not have much impact on U.S. policy toward Pakistan, noting that the Biden administration already has called for an investigation into charges of election irregularities.
“But the vote does raise questions about what additional legislation we could see re Pakistan,” Kugelman, the South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, wrote on X. “What really stands out for me is the margin of the vote, and the number of Members that voted. 85% of House members voted on it, and 98% voted in favor of the resolution. This is quite significant.”
Pakistani authorities have vehemently defended the February 8 vote and its outcome. Opposition parties and independent domestic and foreign observers, however, have complained of nationwide mobile phone and internet shutdowns on the polling day, unusually delayed results, and a state crackdown against jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party in the run-up to the election.
Khan, who has been in jail since last August on controversial graft charges, was convicted in several other cases just days before election day in an apparent bid to keep him from contesting or campaigning.
His Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party was blocked from using its iconic cricket bat symbol on ballot papers in a country where symbols are important to help illiterate voters, in particular, identify which party to vote for.
Despite the crackdown, legal setbacks and alleged military-plotted vote rigging by election authorities, independent candidates backed by Khan’s PTI won the most seats in the 342-seat National Assembly but were short of a simple majority.
That enabled rival Pakistan Muslim League-N, or PML-N, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, or PPP, to form a coalition government with the backing of the military. The PML-N leader, Shehbaz Sharif, became the prime minister.
Khan has since been forcefully raising the electoral fraud issue in statements from his prison cell. PTI leaders at news conferences have persistently stated their party was on the way to sweeping the elections but its mandate was stolen.
“Washington already had been uneasy for months, frustrated, since brazen electoral fraud in Pakistan, and it looked like the regime in Pakistan mistook their silence as approval,” the PTI stated in its response to Tuesday’s U.S. congressional resolution.
The victory of PTI-linked candidates surprised observers and was seen as a landmark upset in Pakistan, where political success has long been tied to the military's backing.
Khan, a cricket star turned prime minister, was removed from power in a vote of no confidence in April 2022. The 71-year-old politician dismissed the move as illegal and plotted by the military.
Pakistan’s military has ousted democratically elected governments through several coups and has ruled the country for more than three decades since it gained independence in 1947.
