Imran asks government to appoint caretaker prime minister

Says PTI has decided to launch protest movement over PanamaLeaks

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday said the government should appoint a caretaker prime minister in the absence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif due to his illness.

Talking to media persons at his Bani Gala residence, Imran Khan said his party had decided to launch a protest movement over the PanamaLeaks issue. He billed the PML-N government as a mafia, which wanted to resort to more and more corruption instead of checking it. He alleged that the ruling party wanted to hide its corruption behind the parliamentary committee.

Imran asserted his party would also raise the issue of the PanamaLeaks at every forum, including the Election Commission and the Supreme Court. He said he was sending a bouquet to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, wishing his early recovery from heart surgery.

The PTI chief articulated his political situation, saying credit goes to his party for spearheading the drive for accountability of Nawaz Sharif with regards to his family’s offshore assets. Imran claimed the prime minister had himself entangled himself in a mess by announcing on the floor of the National Assembly that they had purchased the London flats in 2005, whereas, four of these were bought in 1990s and they had documentary proof of that.

Imran wondered what stopped the prime minister from explaining to the nation his position on his children’s offshore companies if the British prime minister could take no time to come up with documentary proof in the Parliament to defend himself.

“The difference between Nawaz Sharif’s offshore companies and mine is that my source of income is known to all and I never concealed anything, whereas this is not the case with the prime minister. His lie has been traced even in the contradictory statements of his children. He shall have to disclose how he transferred money abroad,” Imran said.

“On lying once in British Parliament, a prime minister could go home within an hour, as to tell a lie was a very serious crime there,” he said. He defended the decision of postponing the much-touted intra-party election for indefinite period, saying that launching a countrywide movement against corruption, money laundering and tax evasion was more important than PTI polls, which he claimed, could be conducted within three weeks. The party is being run at the centre, provincial and local levels under an interim set-up: for how long, this arrangement will stay, is anybody’s guess.

Asked why he avoided having consultations with other parties prior to holding public meetings to mount pressure on the prime minister with regards to Panama Papers, he said the PTI did not believe in politics of patronage and status quo, therefore, he pushed ahead with his party’s programme.

Imran was confident that his party’s level of popularity was so high that it could hold a public meeting in any part of Pakistan, whereas the ruling PML-N was not in a position to hold a public meeting at Minar-e-Pakistan and it was due to the Sharifs’ belief in giving and taking instead of doing genuine politics. He said one person had successfully broken such web of politics and he was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had successfully launched mass mobilisation.

The PTI chief questioned the logic behind the announcement and launching of mega projects like metro bus, orange train, motorways and interchanges, saying the best investment, they could make was in human development, which Singapore, Japan and Germany had made and made the difference.

He alleged that the rulers present different figures regarding the economy in the Parliament and before the IMF. “We spoke for five years against Zardari and now its Nawaz Sharif’s turn,” he said.