Imran warned cabinet it has six months to deliver: Fawad

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan warned the cabinet that if it does not perform in six months, things “will go the other way” and that infighting in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s top leadership hurt the Premier’s vision for reform.

In an interview with Suhail Warraich in Voice of America on Monday, Chaudhry made a series of startling revelations, alleging a tug-of-war between foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, planning minister Asad Umar and PTI leader Jahangir Tareen.

“There were a lot of expectations from the PTI and Imran Khan,” Chaudhry said. “The public had not elected us or the Prime Minister to fix nuts and bolts but to reform the system.”

He added: “When the Panama case was resolved, I and few others had a chance to speak to Imran Khan and at that time I felt his ideas were very clear when it came to reforms. The way he said the chief ministers had become dictators in Sindh and the [National] Finance Commission award should be there along with police reforms [and] judicial reforms, it was very clear at that time what Imran Khan’s vision was.”

Chaudhry said one of the main problems plaguing the party was the infighting between Umar, Jahangir Tareen and Qureshi, leading to “political vacuum” that was filled with the bureaucracy. “When a political vacuum was created, it was filled up with new people who were not from politics,” he said. “When your core team was disturbed it was filled with new people who were, frankly, not aligned with [our] ideas -- and do not have the capacity either,” he added.

This infighting affected the party a lot especially the political class, he stated. Responding to a question about whether the Prime Minister did not get an experienced team or if he was at fault for the way he was governing, Chaudhry said the team was selected by Khan.

“There is no leader like Imran Khan in the Muslim world. You can disagree with him but look at the Turkish leadership which is unacceptable to the West or the Iranian and Saudi leadership which has its controversies. Imran Khan is the only leader who brought the Muslim world together,” he said.

Chaudhry continued: “I can understand about Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, who took weak people and gave them important positions because they had the vision to pass on their leadership [to their children] They had no other vision.”

When asked why, despite having political titans like Qureshi and Pervez Khattak in the cabinet, things turned out the way they were, the minister said they tried to make them (Tareen and Umar) reconcile but it could not happen.

“When Asad Umar became the finance minister, Jahangir Tareen had him removed. Then when Umar came back [to the cabinet] he had Tareen removed. Similarly, Qureshi met Tareen to talk, but nothing could materialise,” Chaudhry said.

He added: “I could not understand because fights happen in parties but I think fights between these top three to four leaders not only affected the party but the entire political class whose place was then taken over by bureaucrats.”