Miftah to stay, Dar not to return soon: Shahid Khaqan

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that Finance Minister Miftah Ismail would continue his work in future as he has been doing exceptional work to restore fractured national economy.

Talking to The News, he said “I don’t think former finance minister Ishaq Dar will return to Pakistan in near future. All decisions are taken by the party leadership in consultation with the senior party members.”

Sources in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) told this correspondent that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif decided to resign on May 27 in the face of tough conditions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was not ready to fulfill conditions of the IMF that was mounting pressure on the government to increase prices of the petroleum products to an unprecedented level,” sources said.

They said at that time Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and former finance minister Ishaq Dar were supporting the proposal to dissolve National Assembly and hold fresh elections instead of bowing to the IMF.

“Shehbaz Sharif, Ishaq Dar and some other mainstream leaders were thinking that increase in the petroleum products would result in record price hike that would make a major dent on the popularity of PMLN especially in the Punjab province,” sources said.

Sources said the supporters of new elections were also of the view that now the establishment was staying neutral and country would have free and fair elections contrary to 2018 when ‘powerful quarters’ allegedly carried out political engineering and rigged the voting process to install Imran Khan as prime minister of Pakistan.

They said when all this discussion was underway former prime minister Imran Khan gave a deadline of May 25 to dissolve national assemblies and announce fresh general elections.

“This deadline changed the whole scenario and many senior party members asked former prime minister Nawaz Sharif that if Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif resigned after announcement of this deadline then it would be a huge political victory of PTI and PMLN would not be able to recover from this loss,” sources said.

Sources said that At that time PMLN supremo Nawaz Sharif and senior party members decided that the coalition government would continue to work and they also needed a finance minister to deal with the disturbing economic issues.