The Foreign Office on Thursday said that concerns raised over Pakistan’s general elections during a US Congressional hearing “reflected a misunderstanding” of the country’s situation and electoral laws.
The comments come a day after US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu told a Congressional panel that if the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) failed to investigate allegations of irregularities in the Feb 8 elections, it will “retard” America’s relationship with Pakistan.
Asked if the ECP’s failure to investigate irregularities would impact US-Pakistan relations, Lu had said it would be an impediment to the relationship of 76 years if Pakistan did not have a democratic process that upholds its own Constitution.
“It will retard our ability to have the type of relationship we want, in security matters, on [the] business front and people to people. All that suffers if Pakistan is not a full democracy,” the diplomat had replied.
“We have never used the term ‘free and fair’ in characterising these elections,” Lu had said in response to a question from Congressman August Pfluger, a Texas Republican.
Responding to a query during a weekly media briefing today, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said “some statements made there (during the hearing) reflected [a] misunderstanding of Pakistan’s domestic situation and electoral laws”.
According to Radio Pakistan, the spokesperson expressed the hope to “engage in meaningful discussion with the United States to address these misunderstandings”.
Zahra emphasised that Pakistan valued its close relations with the US and believed in constructive engagement with it.
While noting that Pakistan respected the prerogative of legislative bodies to discuss international issues, she stressed that “the deliberations of these legislative bodies should contribute [to] promoting positive dynamics in bilateral ties based on mutual respect and understanding”.
US hearing ‘blatant intervention’: Raza Rabbani
Separately, former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani termed the US Congressional hearing a “blatant intervention in the internal affairs” of Pakistan.
In a statement issued today, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, he said, “Taking up the issue of general elections in Pakistan is a blatant intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.”
The seasoned politician said, “My head as a proud Pakistani, citizen of a free and sovereign country, hung in shame as I watched the proceedings of the subcommittee of the US House yesterday.”
“The proceedings left an impression that Pakistan is not even a client state but one of the states of the USA,” he claimed.
He expressed the concern that “if today interference in internal affairs of Pakistan goes unnoticed, tomorrow it can be matters of our national security that can be taken”.
“Bartering of our financial sovereignty to the IMF does not mean that we have become a client state of the West and any country can meddle in our internal affairs,” Rabbani asserted.
Noting that elections had been held in other countries as well but were not brought into question, he urged the Foreign Ministry to take a “belated notice and, warn the US against such intervention.”
“If it is a question of an elected House acting on its own, then tomorrow our Parliament should discuss the US policy on Palestinians, which is creating a destabilising effect in the world, or the various proceedings against Trump,” Rabbani said.
Lu’s testimony
Lu is the diplomat whose supposed warning to former Pakistan Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed was the subject of a cipher sent by the envoy to Islamabad.
The same document was the basis of ex-premier Imran Khan’s allegation of a US conspiracy to oust his government in 2022. The PTI founder is currently on trial for mishandling the same confidential document.
During the US Congressional hearing on Wednesday, Lu termed the allegations against him by Imran — the crux of the ‘cablegate’ cipher controversy — as a “conspiracy theory, lie and complete falsehood”.
When asked if the election results would have been different if alleged irregularities were not committed, Lu said that was for the ECP to decide. However, the diplomat agreed with the suggestion that the ECP should hold re-election if it found evidence of substantial rigging in some constituencies.
“The US does not go around recognising new governments,” he said, when Congressman Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, asked him if Washington recognises the new government in Pakistan. The US administration, he explained, works with the government in power.
