Hukumat Hatao campaign: PTI set to start regime change countdown

Sit-ins to continue even in Ramazan.

ISLAMABAD:

Without hinting anything concrete about a ‘game plan’, chief of the Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) Imran Khan said that he will start a countdown for a regime change in Islamabad later this month, adding that dharnas would continue even in Ramazan.

“The time has come for the people of Pakistan to reject leaders who safeguard self interests,” said the PTI chief at a press conference in which he urged the masses to join the movement.

Khan said that a public meeting would initially be held in Faisalabad on July 24, followed by a series of demonstrations in Islamabad as part of his party’s “Hukumat Hatao, Mulk Bachao” movement.

According to the plan, a series of weekend dharnas (sit-ins) would be staged in front of Parliament House which would continue during Ramazan. These gatherings would be supplemented by public meetings in Lahore and elsewhere in the country that would culminate in Islamabad.

When asked about the timeframe to accomplish the task, Khan said: “We do have a timeframe in mind, but I am not going to share because that would reveal our game plan.”

Terming the so-called grand alliance led by PML-N a “grand fraud”, Imran Khan said these parties enjoyed all perks and privileges of being in government for three and a half years and were not sincere with
people’s cause.

If PML-N was sincere, it should resign from provincial and national assemblies, he added.

Rejecting the possibility of joining hands with the PML-N, Imran Khan said PTI and Jamat-e-Islami had been betrayed during the long march for restoration of judiciary in 2009.

When asked to answer a question if PTI’s movement was against democracy, the PTI chairman said he did not consider the system brought in power through “45 per cent bogus votes” to be a democracy.

The PTI chief lauded the chief justice for his historic decision to remove bogus votes and register almost 37 million new voters by December this year. He said the PTI would mobilise youth in all constituencies to register their votes.

“President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani should be held in contempt of court for their defiance to Supreme Court orders,” Khan added.

The PTI Chairman condemned the government for letting loose a reign of terror in Karachi and said that the writ of the government “has all but collapsed”, he added.

Imran Khan reiterated that free and fair elections under a caretaker government set up by the president “who is also the co-chairman of the PPP is only wishful thinking”.

To save the country from bloodshed, which would be an inevitable consequence of rigged elections, the PTI would strive to remove the government, he said.

He said only a neutral caretaker government set up with the blessings of the Supreme Court “can hold free and fair elections under an independent election commission and transparent Nadra based electoral rolls”.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2011.