Demanding Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s immediate resignation, the country’s major Opposition parties have launched an alliance to carry a state protest movement to oust his government.
(Milcah Anila, Intern Journalist)Pakistan: Demanding Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s immediate resignation, the country’s major Opposition parties have launched an alliance to carry a state protest movement to oust his government.
A 26-point resolution was adopted on Sunday by the All Parties Conference (APC), which was hosted by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and attended by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), and a number of other parties.
At a joint news conference after the top of the multi-party meeting, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazl ur Rehman read out the resolution and said that the Opposition parties have agreed to launch an alliance named Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) to arrange countrywide protests against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government from October.
The resolution alleged that the Khan government has been granted “fake stability by an equivalent establishment” that interfered with the elections to bring the incumbent rulers to power.
In clear regard to the powerful Pakistan Army, the resolution expressed “extreme concern” over the increasing interference of the establishment within the internal affairs of the country and regarded it as a “danger to the nation’s stability and institutions”.
According to the resolution, the protests would start in phases. within the first phase, the Opposition parties will hold joint rallies altogether four provinces in October. The second phase will begin in December during which the Opposition will hold huge rallies across the country.
Finally, a “decisive” long march towards Islamabad would start in January next year to oust the govt.
The forum also demanded that elections be held again during a transparent manner in which electoral reforms should be passed to make sure free and fair polls.
Terming the Parliament a “rubber stamp”, the PDM declared that the opposition won’t cooperate with the govt within the legislative process.
The Opposition also will enlist lawyers, traders, farmers, students, media also as members of the civil society in its movement. To oust the govt, opposition parties will use “every legal and constitutional option in and out of parliament, which include moving no-confidence motions and collective resignations from assemblies at an appropriate time,” the resolution stated.
The resolution, JUI-F chief Rehman said, has also rejected any plan to introduce a presidential sort of government within the country and pledged to strengthen the parliamentary system of the country.
Earlier, addressing the multi-party conference through a video link from London, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said the struggle of the Opposition parties wasn’t against Khan but against those that brought an “inefficient” man to power.
The 70-year-old PML-N supremo has been living in London since November last year after the Lahore supreme court permitted him to travel abroad for four weeks for treatment.
On Friday, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari talked to him over the phone and invited him to virtually attend the conference.
Sharif staged a political comeback by criticizing the country’s powerful military establishment for allegedly supporting Khan.
“Our struggle isn’t against Imran Khan. Today, our struggle is against those that installed Imran Khan and who manipulated elections (of 2018) to bring an inefficient man like him into power and thus destroyed the country,” he said.
He asked the Pakistan Army to remain faraway from politics and follow the Constitution and vision of the country’s father ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
“If change isn’t brought, it’ll bring irreversible loss to the present country…We have made this country a joke in our own eyes and internationally also,” Sharif said.
The Pakistan Army has ruled the country for quite half its 70 plus years of existence and has wielded considerable power within the matters of security and policy.
Before Sharif, former president Asif Ali Zardari also addressed the conference through a video-link and criticized the govt, which he said was using the tactics to suppress the Opposition.
About Post Author
