PHOTO: PPI
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has decided to contest by-elections for the two vacant National Assembly seats instead of challenging the verdicts of the election tribunal in the Supreme Court.
In his capacity as PML-N chief, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a consultative meeting on Thursday with the party leadership to discuss the political fallout from the unseating of former speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Siddiq Khan Baloch by election tribunals.
The main agenda of the meeting was to devise strategy on whether to go for by-polls or move the apex court to get an injunction against the decisions of the tribunals. The second key question was whether the PML-N should back Sardar Ayaz as National Assembly speaker after his re-election or appoint someone else for the most coveted slot in the lower house.
According to sources privy to the development, almost all PML-N senior leaders asked PM Nawaz to go ahead with the party decision as both Sadiq and Baloch’s representatives should contest the by-elections. The prime minster endorsed their proposal and asked them to start preparations.
At the same time, they asked the premier to let both the aggrieved Sadiq and Baloch to move the apex court not for seeking a stay order against the tribunals’ decisions but rather to plea the court to set and put the record in order.
Sources said that Sadiq in his plea would ask the superior court to ensure that both the voters and the candidate are not punished for the mistakes of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) staff.
About Siddiq Baloch’s petition, Baloch is unlikely to seek a stay order against the tribunal decision but would ask it to review its order as the tribunal barred him from contesting the election. After neither of them seek a stay order, the sources said, the ECP will issue a schedule for the by-elections.
PM Nawaz not only endorsed the two decisions but also asked the party’s parliamentary board to start searching for a potential candidate for NA-154. Sources indicated that Siddiq Baloch’s son, MPA Zubair Baloch, is interested to contest the election on the vacant seat of his father.
About the re-election of Khawaja Saad Rafique, from NA-125, the status of his case in the Supreme Court also came under discussion. Although Saad Rafique was not present in the meeting, a majority of the party leaders asked the prime minister that Rafique’s issue is sub judice as he sought a stay order from the apex court.
Sources said that the government would summon a National Assembly session in October. Within 45 days, Sadiq will be re-elected and hopefully in the next session he will take oath and get re-elected as NA speaker, they added.
After the consultative meeting, federal ministers Pervaiz Rashid and Ahsan Iqbal appeared before the media and jointly said that PML-N has decided to go into the re-pollings and in the same breath asked the PTI not to leave the field and contest their candidates.
They said that it is Imran Khan’s agenda to destabilise the country while PML-N will continue to focus on its development agenda of the country.
MQM resignations
Ishaq Dar briefed the party leadership about PML-N’s intention to address the MQM’s grievances pertaining to extra-judicial killing and enforced disappearances of its workers.
On Friday, representatives of the MQM and the government will hold a joint news conference where they will announce a proposed committee for addressing the party’s grievances while the Karachi-based party in exchange will announce withdrawal of its resignations from the assemblies.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 28th, 2015.
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