PTI chairman’s politics weakens Pakistan: PM Shehbaz

ISLAMABAD: Reacting to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s remarks about former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday lashed out at ex-premier for “undermining” the foundation of Pakistan just for his own rule.

The prime minister noted that the PTI chief had also recently launched a diatribe against ‘parliamentary democracy’.

“PTI leader’s [Imran Khan] politics is aimed at making his way to power, even if it meant undermining foundations this country stood on,” Prime Minister Sharif said on his Twitter handle.

PTI leader Imran Khan’s recent diatribe against parliamentary democracy was the latest in a series of attacks that flew in the face of how democracy functioned in modern nation-states, he wrote.

PDM rules out polls before Oct 2023

Although the prime minister spent a silent day on Sunday as no official meeting took place, he preferred to lash Imran Khan through his tweet.

Mr Khan, in his recent interview, had said giving extension to Gen Bajwa as Chief of Army Staff (COAS) was his ’biggest mistake“. This was also endorsed by former speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser who also repented in a recent interview with e private TV channel that granting Bajwa an extension was a “mistake”.

Later, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Atta Tarar said that PML-Q leader Moonis Elahi tried to defame Mr Khan and Gen Bajwa by giving a statement that the latter urged him to join Mr Khan at the time of no-confidence move against the ex-premier despite the fact that Gen Bajwa himself had made it clear the military establishment had been neutral at least since February 2022.

He said Mr Khan was the king of U-turns and he had changed his threat of dissolution of the assemblies and asked government for negotiations.

Meanwhile, a leader of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Hafiz Hamdullah on Sunday said general elections would be held as per schedule in October 2023, but if the country’s economic condition did not allow it, the polls could be delayed for a year or so.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2022