Religious leaders’ mixed response to opposition’s APC

LAHORE: Religious leaders expressed mixed response to the demands of Opposition parties APC and the speech of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, supporting the narrative of establishing parliament’s supremacy in the country, but at the same time questioning these politicians’ past record of coming to power on the shoulders of military establishment.

Jamiat Ahle Hadith President Senator Prof Sajid Mir said Nawaz’s speech truly represented the sentiments of the masses and the democratic forces in the country. He said Nawaz questioned the motives for which the democratic systems had been frequently overthrown in the country and elected parliaments were dissolved on the whims of a few.

JUP Vice President Qari Zawwar Bahadur supported the narrative of parliament’s supremacy but said the desired movement by Opposition leaders could yield positive results only if they displayed sincerity with one another and kept their words. He said the Opposition leadership had worked for democracy only when they were out of power, but while in power they had served their own interests. He said a large section of society had alienated from democracy only because of these politicians who had never strengthened democracy in their own ranks and undermined democratic values in the country.

Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) President Allama Zubair Ahmad Zaheer said no democracy loving person could reject the call for establishing the civilian parliamentary supremacy in the country and closing the doors of dictatorship. But he said the callers of the civilian supremacy had acquired and enjoyed the power while sitting in the lap of dictators. He said despite enjoying power two and three times, these parties had never strengthened democracy, Islam and economy in the country.

As a philosophical reality, he said, democracy had completely failed and exposed all over the world because engineered governments were brought to power even in the superpower like the US, and India.