Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that October or November would be appropriate for holding elections across the country, reiterating the government’s resolve to push for all provincial and National Assembly polls to be held simultaneously.
The PM expressed his dismay over the apex court’s decision to hold elections in Punjab on May 14 during his address to the federal cabinet in Islamabad and said that the issue of funding the elections would once again be sent back to parliament.
He also stressed that all coalition parties were unanimous against piecemeal elections.
Despite the joint house’s “constitutional efforts to address matters concerning the Supreme Court”, the premier said that “the situation is still very challenging”.
“For instance,” he continued, “the SC wishes to pursue matters with the three-member bench” which “the parliament had rejected”.
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Furthermore, PM Shehbaz said that the government still stood by its interpretation of the apex court’s earlier April 4 verdict as 4-3.
“It is our moral and political duty to respect the decisions made by the parliament,” he stressed, adding that he did not agree with the idea “that the SC should be given the job of an arbiter”.
“To act like a panchayat is not their job,” he underscored, “their job is to decide matters as per the Constitution”.
“The parliament completes its term on August 13 and if 90 days are added to that then the date should add up to November or October,” he said
Notably, the premier’s address came only hours after a crucial meeting with leaders of the ruling coalition.
The meeting was attended by JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Foreign Minister and PPP Co-Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari alongside other important members of the federal coalition and federal ministers.
‘Govt open to dialogue despite Imran’s divisions’
The premier regretted during his address that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf “instead of solving the challenges faced by the country, only exploited them further”.
“They told their own provincial finance minister to communicate to the IMF that they are unwilling to fulfil the conditions put down [by the money lender],” he said.
“Pakistan had no shortage of issues and they only added to it by claiming that the US had conspired [to oust Imran Khan’s government]; and if that wasn’t enough, they shamelessly took a U-turn saying that the plot was not finalized in the US, rather woven up in Pakistan.
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“And not just that, but our foreign interests were destroyed,” he said.
PM Shehbaz maintained that “seeds of bitter divisions were sown in all domains of life in Pakistan” by Imran’s politics, as he regretted the rhetoric against the armed forces in particular.
“I have no qualms in admitting that the PTI’s agents, who are the enemies of the country, played such a role against the military that even an enemy could not live up to that,” he added.
In spite of his disagreements, the premier stressed that “all matters are to be settled by the parliament and nobody else”, adding that there is “an overwhelming opinion that the doors for dialogue should be left open” to which he was willing to comply.
However, he said, “what the format of the dialogue should be” was still open to discussion.
The premier suggested that one possible route could be that the National Assembly speaker and the parliamentary committee could take up the responsibility to help find a resolution to political differences.
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