ISLAMABAD: PTI Senior Vice-President Fawad Chaudhry Thursday said his party wanted good relations with the institutions, supremacy of the law and fresh elections in accordance with the Constitution.
He was speaking at a news conference here a day after his release on conditional bail in a sedition case. Hammad Azhar and senior member Dr Shahbaz Gill accompanied him.
He said election was the only way to bring stability to the country adding that those not holding the elections in 90 days will deviate from the Constitution and Article 6 will be imposed on them.
Fawad said the judges now had to decide whether they wanted to become Justice Munir or the protector of the Constitution.
“Whoever talks about going beyond 90 days with reference to elections will be guilty of violating the Constitution,” he said. “If the caretaker setup will work beyond 90 days, then Article 6 will be imposed on them. The government is neither able to handle the country nor Imran Khan, while arrests are being made at midnight these days. It was learnt at night that Sheikh Rashid and Imran Riaz had been arrested. And here they are going to take revenge,” he charged.
Fawad said when the country needed stability, instability was being spread, whereas the PTI controlled terrorism and restored peace during its tenure.
He said Imran dealt with the issue of Afghanistan very wisely and on Pakistan’s request, the Taliban allowed more than 300,000 foreigners to leave the war-torn country. “We helped foreign journalists to get out of Afghanistan. There were no bomb blasts during our time. Peace was restored because Imran Khan always talked about peace and he took the stand that war was no solution to any problem.”
He said the PDM government had no Afghan policy adding that Bilawal Zardari paid more than 17 visits to the US but not a single visit to Afghanistan.
“Unless there are better relations with Afghanistan, things cannot be fixed. There is a need to reduce hatred in Pakistan.”
He pointed out that the defence minister said in the parliament that terrorism was brought back to the country by Imran Khan.
“The common people in Pakistan are reeling under inflation. The rulers have no solution. Instead of solving the problems, they are engaged in our arrests. First Shahbaz Gill, then Azam Swati and later I was also arrested,” Fawad said and asked if Pakistan could afford instability in the current circumstances.
“It is said that the contempt of government is treason. If so, then insulting the Election Commission is also treason. Has the entire country become a traitor? I tell the institutions not to take the burden of these incompetent people (rulers) to the extent that your back is hurt.
“Nawaz Sharif and his children are in London and their wealth is also abroad, while dummy governments have been formed in the country. A strange caretaker cabinet has been installed in Punjab and the person who cannot become a councillor in his neighbourhood, has become the chief minister of Punjab. The people of the caretaker cabinet of Punjab want their power to prolong,” he noted.
The country has been forced to suffer massively in the process of capturing Imran Khan, he said.
About the Sharif and Zardari families, he claimed that they had no future in the country’s politics, as the people of PMLN and PPP were taking their last turn in politics and a new opposition will emerge if the PTI got back into power again.
Criticising the PMLN Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, Fawad said besides her surgery, she should have got treatment from a psychiatrist. Hammad Azhar said the country’s economic situation was not different from the political situation. He said the IMF delegation was present in Pakistan but some more steps were needed to be taken.
He explained that the rate of increase in the prices of food items in Pakistan was 45 percent, the prices of vegetables, pulses, ghee, essential commodities were skyrocketing, while there were fears of further inflation.