Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan has written a letter to the International Monetary Fund asking it to link any talks with Islamabad to an audit of the country’s recent elections, his party said on Friday. Announced.
Senator Ali Zafar, a top leader of Mr. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI), made the remarks on television after meeting Mr. Khan at Adiala prison, where he is serving multiple sentences.
This latest development comes days before the IMF disburses a major installment of bailout loans to Pakistan.
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It also comes a day after IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozak said the global financial institution stands ready to work with Pakistan’s new government on “policies to ensure macroeconomic stability and prosperity for all Pakistanis.” There is also a thing.
The IMF has not commented on Khan’s highly publicized move to write the letter.
Khan has faced harsh criticism at home from rivals who say he tried to block a $1 billion tranche from the IMF to Pakistan to damage the country’s economy.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (centre) speaks to supporters in Gujranwala on November 1, 2022, during an anti-government march to the capital Islamabad, demanding early elections. (ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images)
Last summer, Pakistan announced the IMF’s long-awaited $3 billion bailout package after months of talks with former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan after he was ousted in a 2022 parliamentary no-confidence vote. , narrowly avoiding default on external payments.
With no party, including Khan’s, able to win a majority in the February 8 vote, Sharif is currently consulting with allies to form a coalition government.
Khan’s candidates won 93 of the 265 parliamentary seats in the election, but it was not enough to form a government. Khan’s party claims it has evidence that officials altered election results in dozens of constituencies to turn candidates’ victories into defeats, but election watchdogs deny the charges. There is.
Mr. Zafar said that due to voter fraud, “the PTI candidate who was winning (in the election) lost” and Mr. Khan urged the IMF to seek an independent election audit before continuing with negotiations to cancel the loan to Pakistan. He added that he hopes so. .
The IMF and Khan’s previous government have been at loggerheads over the former prime minister’s failure to fully abide by a 2019 deal that gave him a $6 billion bailout. The release of the main tranche of this bailout remained pending, causing a sudden rise in inflation and the devaluation of Pakistan’s currency against the US dollar.
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Sharif, the country’s new prime minister, said he would negotiate further relief with the IMF to fight inflation, the biggest challenge he faces, and improve the country’s struggling economy.
