LONDON: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) leaders have said the government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has failed on all fronts due to incompetence and in-house change is needed for free and fair elections to bring a democratically elected govt to resolve critical issues faced by the masses.
Senior most leadership of PMLN held a meeting under the leadership of Shehbaz Sharif at a restaurant on Edgware Road where the current situation of Pakistan was discussed and future strategy formalized. Khawaja Asif, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Rana Tanveer, Shehbaz Sharif, Ayaz Sadiq, Ahsan Iqbal, Pervaiz Rasheed, Amir Muqam, Khurram Destagir and Ishaq Dar took part in the meeting at Edgware Road’s Maroush Gardens. At the end of the meeting, the PMLN leaders walked to Avenfield apartments to meet Nawaz Sharif to inquire about his health and to update him about the decisions taken during the meeting.
According to Shehbaz Sharif, Khawaja Asif and Ahsan Iqbal, the PMLN leadership agreed that in-house change was needed.
Outside the Maroush Gardens, Khawaja Asif said: “For fresh elections, its our view that there should be an in-house change not for the sake of perpetuating the change but for the sake of holding new elections.”
Asif said the PMLN leaders had consulted Shehbaz on the political developments that had taken place over the past few days.
"We will formulate the party's policy on these matters upon our return to Pakistan," he said. Khawaja Asif added that the issue of the army chief's extension couldn’t be commented upon until the issuance of the detailed judgment.
After holding meeting with the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for about 90 minutes, Shehbaz Sharif and Ahsan Iqbal briefed media outside the Avenfield apartments.
The former Punjab Chief Minister said that Dr Adnan Khan briefed PMLN leaders about the elder Sharif’s health. He said that results of PET scans had shown that his lymph notes had grown and further investigation will be carried out related to lymph notes as well as the causes of issue of platelets’ maintenance. He said that his brother will return to Pakistan upon the completion of his treatment and when advised by the doctors.
He said: “The atmosphere of Islamabad is gripped by the culture of jaadu toona (magic)”.
Shehbaz Sharif said that PMLN wanted the best persons to become members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and that was the reason behind his letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan suggesting three names for the commission.
“Our experience in the recent past with Imran Khan has been extremely disappointing but hoping against the hope I wrote to the PM. Its our best effort from the bottom of our hearts that we should talk about these critical issues, develop a consensus and chose the best candidates.”
Former Federal Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that issue of Army Chief’s extension was discussed in the meeting and it was decided that the PMLN would comment on this issue after seeing the detailed judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He accused the PTI government of deliberately defaming Pakistan army and creating an issue deliberately.
He said the extension of army chief’s tenure should have ben dealt in a routine matter and the govt had August to November to go through all rules and aspects but “they deliberately made it complicated and brought embarrassment to our armed forces. This proves that either the PTI government is most incompetent or most dishonest. Similarly, the appointment of CEC members was known for ages but this appointment was delayed and then leader of the opposition had no choice but to write to the court.
Ahsan Iqbal accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of failing the people of oppressed Kashmir by not doing anything for them in more than four months. He said the PM announced that he was on a mission to bring truce to the world conflicts and that he will be an ambassador of Kashmiri but in four months his government has not done anything for Kashmiris, the govt has failed to get international support on Kashmir while lockdown and curfew of Kashmir continues and human rights of Kashmiris continue being violated by the occupation Indian army.
He said the PMLN would be joining other parties to protest against inflation and failure of the government to provide relief to ordinary people of Pakistan. He said that food inflation is above 16% which is affecting the poor people and electricity bills have gone up to five times.”
He said the PTI govt’s agenda was to divert attention of the people from real issue by attacking opposition with baseless allegations and lies.