No election on May 14, Sana says point-blank

Tells PML-N workers to continue with preparations irrespective of when polls take place

LAHORE:

Despite the well-defined Supreme Court orders to hold elections in Punjab which is also a constitutional obligation, Federal Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah has announced that elections will not be held on May 14, iterating that they will be held simultaneously throughout the country.

Sanaullah’s statement came at a juncture, when two political parties – the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami – were separately making efforts to end the political impasse in the country by trying to bring parties in the ruling alliance and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to a negotiating table.

This pronouncement by the interior minister, is not only an open defiance of the court orders, but also dampens the hopes of any effective arbitration as the PTI, the only real opposition of the ruling alliance, wants the government to own the primacy of constitutionally mandated elections in Punjab prior to entering any dialogue process.

Talking to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz workers in Faisalabad, Sanaullah said that no matter how hard they try, without specifying who he was alluding to, the elections will be held simultaneously under the caretaker set-up and that too this year.

He said that the PML-N workers, however, should continue with their preparations irrespective of when the elections take place. Reiterating his claim made over several dozen times and every time with a different timeframe and excuse, Sanaullah said that as elections draw near, “Nawaz Sharif will return to Pakistan and will lead the electoral campaign.”

Nawaz has been living in London since 2019 on the pretext of a medical condition in order to avoid serving time back home.

Read more: Cabinet voices concern over Punjab elections

Sanaullah accused “Imran Khan and his cohorts” of steering the economy towards a financial disaster, saying the PTI chairman was launched as part of a conspiracy against Pakistan.

He said it was because of Imran that Pakistan was forced to “rub its nose before countries for a billion dollars”. The minister who pinned the blame on PTI chief Imran Khan for the back breaking price hikes brought on by policies and mismanagement of his government, said that it was the IMF deal agreed by the PTI government that was causing this inflation in Pakistan.

However, he claimed that this downhill economic slide was coming to an end and soon the government would turn things around for good.

Prior to Sanaullah, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is also the president of Pakistan Democratic Movement, also termed Imran irrelevant in Pakistani politics and called him a “stooge of foreign forces”, asserting that they had not stooped so low to hold a dialogue with him.

While on the other hand, the PPP was making a somewhat sincere-looking attempt to convince parties in the government to agree to talks with all political stake holders. The PPP’s move thus far was only limited to engaging with allied parties and not the PTI.

Further, the JI leaders recently held meetings with both former premier Imran and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and convinced both the sides to hold dialogue.

Party spokesperson on Saturday said that the JI would plan an all-party conference post-Eidul Fitr wherein all parties would be invited to work a way out of this existing quagmire.

A senior PTI leader, however, did not see the JI’s attempt as bearing any fruit, claiming that the JI had no leverage on either sides and claimed that since they were only a shadow of their former self, they lacked the position of authority needed for arbitration.

However, he said that the PTI would still take part in the dialogue as they believed in principle of democracy.

The PTI has constituted a three-member committee which would be led by former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Pervez Khattak.