ISLAMABAD: The army said on Wednesday that it had no trouble not having a role in holding elections in the country in the future.
The spokesman of the army general General Asif Ghafoor, while participating in a program of interviews on a private channel, said that the army general general, Qamar Javed Bajwa, had already proposed to political leaders to design a system and create an environment that could put an end to the role of the military in the elections.
In response to another question, the spokesman said his comments always reflected the institutional position of the army on the issues and were never his own views.
The army has provided security in most of the elections held in the country by monitoring the polling stations and providing security coverage to the electoral personnel and the material during their movement.
The elections held last year saw the largest deployment in the country's electoral history, as 371,388 soldiers were involved.
The growing role of the army has generated criticism from political parties, some of which claimed that the army and intelligence agencies influenced the electoral process last year. In view of these concerns, opposition parties have included the demand to end the role of the army in the elections in the four-point demand letter to end Islamabad's sitting in Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam.
Major General Ghafoor said the army gets involved in the elections only when the government requests it to receive assistance under the Constitution. “It is not that the Constitution gives us a role or that we want to have one. It is always the decision of the government of the day. There are also contributions from other parties. The army has no role in the matter, ”he said.
He also said that discussions about how many troops to deploy and where to deploy them take place after the army has been requisitioned under the Constitution.
The armed forces are requisitioned under articles 220 and 245 of the Constitution. Article 220 obliges all executive authorities of the federation and provinces to assist the Chief Commissioner of Elections and the Electoral Commission of Pakistan in the performance of their duties, while Article 245 refers to the requirement of the armed forces in aid of civil power.
“When troops are not required, they will not come. It is up to the government and other political parties to decide, ”he said.
The military spokesman, in response to a question, discarded any role of the army to deactivate the political situation created by the sitting of the JUI-F. “A sitting is a political activity. The army as an institution does not have a role nor did it have it in the past. [.…] It is up to the government and the opposition to discuss the matter. It's his domain and his job. "
He recalled that during the 2014 sit-in the army also deployed troops in the federal capital to protect important buildings in the Red Zone following government instructions.
On the accusations related to the interference of "institutions" in political affairs, Major General Ghafoor said that the army is too concerned with its national security duties to engage in such activities or even to respond to these accusations.
Posted in Dawn, November 7, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1515395/ispr-chief-rules-out-army-role-in-defusing-crisis