Imran Khan says doesn’t see elections in ‘near future’

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has expressed fear over the talks about bringing in a ‘technocrat’ government in the country; “I do not see fresh elections in near future”.

“It is necessary for the ‘people’ sitting behind the government to agree for the fresh election,” he said while talking to a delegation of newly-elected office-bearers of the Lahore Press Club here on Wednesday.

PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry expressed a similar fear in his tweet, saying the PTI will not accept the move of forming a technocrat government in the country.

The party will resist it. He said the idea of replacing the government with a technocratic set-up was ‘foolish’, adding that the political crisis was more severe than economic turmoil. “Such schemes were being designed at the cost of the country’s interests just to stop Imran Khan from regaining power,” he added. Meanwhile, the former prime minister told the delegation that if any ‘political engineering’ was involved in the upcoming general elections, the results would not be good for the country.

He cited the example of East Pakistan by saying that the mandate of the largest party there was not recognised. He denied any contact with ‘establishment’ and castigated the Pakistan Democratic Movement for becoming a ‘drawing room party’.

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He reiterated that the interests of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were abroad; “when the interests of both the families are not in Pakistan then how can we sign a charter of the economy with them”. He castigated the rulers wiping off corruption cases worth Rs 1100 billion by amending the NAB law.

He kept former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa (retired) on his radar by alleging that he had done great injustice to this country. He held Bajwa responsible for bringing the country close to default. “Our government had a good working relationship with General Bajwa, but in his eyes the corruption of politicians was meaningless,” he added.

He also told journalists about the worrying state of Pakistan’s economy; “the country was facing a prospect of default. Right now, the default risk rate stands over 90 percent”. He pointed out that the country was subjected to ‘mob rule’ and the law of jungle; “the country’s problems cannot be resolved without establishing the rule of law”.

Meanwhile, as per the sources, the PTI chairman tasked former Punjab chief minister and PTI parliamentary leader Sardar Usman Buzdar to ensure the presence of all PTI 178 members of the provincial assembly for a joint session of the PTI and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) parliamentary parties. He had already directed PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi to ensure the availability of his party’s 10 MPAs.

The meeting of the joint parliamentary parties was scheduled to be held on January 2 which will chalk out a strategy for the Punjab chief minister’s vote of confidence and a date for the Assembly’s session.

In this connection, Punjab Assembly Speaker Sibtain Khan told the media outside the PTI Chairman’s residence that the PTI and PML-Q will finalise a strategy on the vote of confidence and the motion of no-confidence in the parliamentary party meeting scheduled in January. “No date has been decided for the vote of confidence and the motion of no-confidence,” he said, adding that the court did not bind the Punjab chief minister to any specific date for the trust vote.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022