By Special Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry Sunday said that his party wants talks with the government on the issue of elections in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to be successful but, at the same time, contended that the party has a “strategy” in place if the talks failed.
“PTI wants the negotiations [with the government] successful, but if failed, it has already a strategy in place,” the former minister said in a tweet. “It is not possible for the Tehreek-e-Isanf to sit silently if the Constitution is considered just a piece of paper and the public as insects,” he said, asking the people to get ready for a “movement”. “The movement is starting tomorrow with public rallies in Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar, the peak of which will be a historic long march,” Fawad added.
Talks between the government and the opposition party commenced earlier this week on the advice of the apex court. The development was seen as a major breakthrough in the weeks-long impasse on polls date between the ruling alliance and the opposition party. After two rounds of talks, the parties are now expected to hold the final round of negotiations on May 2.
With both the major parties refusing to budge from their respective positions, chances that the dialogue will yield positive results have started looking “very slim”. Speaking to party workers on Saturday night, former prime minister and PTI chief Imran Khan said his party would be ready to discuss the polls date only after the dissolution of the National Assembly before May 14 — the date for elections in Punjab as per the supreme court’s April 4 order.
“The PTI’s negotiating team will meet the govt’s team for the third round on Tuesday (May 2) and present its demand to dissolve the National Assembly before May 14, otherwise, the PTI will go ahead with the Punjab general elections as per Supreme Court’s order,” Imran said and added the PTI would also approach the top court for earliest general elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as the constitutional time frame of 90 days had already passed.
Separately, in a meeting chaired by PM Shehbaz Sharif in Lahore’s Model Town secretariat a day earlier, the senior PML-N leadership decided it would not back down from its demand for simultaneous elections across the country.
Polls impasse
Efforts to reach a consensus come against the backdrop of a deadlock on elections, with the PTI seeking polls at the earliest — particularly in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where assemblies were dissolved in January — and the government maintaining that elections across the country be held on the same day in October.
After repeated back and forth last week, the apex court on April 20, afforded a temporary respite to the country’s main political parties, giving them time until April 26 to develop a consensus on the date for elections to the provincial and national assemblies, so they could be held simultaneously across the country.
Moreover, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman decided to stay away from the talks as his party believes that the negotiations with Imran Khan’s PTI would not succeed.
