Amid agreement: PTI divided over return to assemblies

Core committee to take final decision in today’s meeting.

ISLAMABAD:

The ruling PML-N and the PTI have ceased fire – at least for now. The government has given in after a long debilitating confrontation with Imran Khan’s party and acquiesced to form a judicial commission to investigate alleged fraud in the 2013 elections. But will PTI’s lawmakers, who had resigned en masse from all but Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in August, last year, return to the assemblies?

The government’s acquiescence to form the proposed commission was announced by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar at a hurriedly called news conference with senior PTI leaders, including Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen on Friday. At the news conference, Dar said his party hoped PTI’s MPs would return to the assemblies.

Qureshi, however, was noncommittal. “Our core committee will decide this in its meeting scheduled for Sunday,” he said.

On Saturday, Dar contacted leaders of other political parties to take them into confidence on the deal with the PTI. But insiders say the finance minister particularly asked opposition politicians to convince Imran’s party to send back its lawmakers to the assemblies in order to strengthen parliament.

The PTI core committee will discuss in its Sunday’s meeting the agreement reached with the ruling PML-N and take a decision on whether or not to return to the assemblies. “Some close confidants of the party chairman say the party should wait until the judicial commission completes its probe,” a senior PTI leader told The Express Tribune.

He referred to the recent statements of Imran in which the PTI chairman insisted that 2015 was the election year. “Such statements are manifestation of hard-liners’ views in the party,” he added.

Though no timeframe has been agreed upon for the judicial inquiry into the vote fraud allegations, sources said the PTI would insist the commission complete its task within 45 days.

“We have demanded that the judicial commission submit its findings in the shortest possible time – and we will ensure the findings are not affected by any political pressure,” Shah Mehmood Qureshi told journalists at the Multan airport on Saturday

Hawks in the party say a decision to return to parliament must be delayed till that time. However, Qureshi said on record that “the PTI lawmakers will return to the assemblies only after the commission submits its findings”.

Conversely, doves in the PTI argue that the party’s lawmakers should return to the assemblies as soon as the proposed judicial commission is formed.

The PTI core committee will also discuss the findings of a commission, headed by Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed, which has recommended the party leadership dissolve all bodies, committees and offices of the party, including the core committee and the central executive committee. The commission was formed by Imran to investigate complaints about the intra-party elections held in December 2012.

The commission had given its recommendations saying that some party offices were occupied by elected representatives and the party’s elected bodies were represented by non-elected people.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2015.