PML-N, PPP sabotaged CoD themselves: jailed PTI leaders

LAHORE: Incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders -- including Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Senator Ejaz Chaudhry and Umar Sarfaraz Cheema -- have accused the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of deceiving the nation and violating the Charter of Democracy (CoD), which they had signed themselves.

In a joint statement, the PTI leaders said the CoD that was signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in London in 2006 has been “demolished methodically by the same parties who had penned it”.

They maintained the two parties took a U-turn and destroyed democracy, leaving it in shambles. “The lust for power was too big a temptation, and Imran Khan had become a major obstruction in that path. Democracy can only progress when there is civil supremacy,” they said. The 1973 Constitution spelled it out for the people of Pakistan, they said, adding in the COD, both parties had committed about it.

The PTI leadership said the PMLN and PPP went back on their words and went for a regime change. “Today, we have a government which is proud to call itself a ‘hybrid regime’. The most vocal proponent of this regime is Khawaja Asif, the defence minister. We wonder where is Nawaz Sharif going to support it.”

They said the Supreme Court has always been considered as the custodian of the Constitution. “Both the parties had committed to an independent judiciary in the COD. Today, both the parties are responsible for undermining the independence of the judiciary through the 26th Amendment,” they added.

The PTI leaders further said Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had agreed to an independent election commission in the COD, alleging that the current ECP was involved in the manipulation of the February 8, 2024 elections. The mandate of the people of Pakistan was stolen and given to the Form-47 government, they maintained.

They said Nawaz Sharif must be feeling very embarrassed as “Vote ko Izzat Do” was his narrative, however, the “love for his daughter probably supersedes all his sane thoughts”.