Die is cast: Sharifs to blame if anything happens to me, declares Imran

Says Nawaz tried to exploit issue of national security for political purposes.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that if anything happens to him, his workers should not let Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif get away with it.

Talking to the media on Saturday, he said that threats would not keep him from marching to the federal capital on August 14. “No forces can stop the march. Our supporters and the public will be there.”

The PTI chief also asked the Punjab police to let them protest peacefully.

“The Sharifs’ attempts to stifle democracy and disrupt the whole country by closing major arteries, petrol stations and means of public transport will not work,” Imran said separately in a statement issued by the party secretariat. The prime minister made a ridiculous and unsuccessful attempt to show that the “PTI is isolated”, he said. “The march will come to Islamabad regardless of the barriers the government is trying to put up.”

Nawaz Sharif tried to exploit an issue of national security for political purposes and held a photo-op, which has proven that PTI’s boycott of this farcical conference was absolutely correct, he stated while referring to the National Security Conference held at the Prime Minister’s House on Saturday.

In response to a question about the stance of other political parties, he said, “I would like to ask the other parties to make a decision. Don’t play on both sides of the fence – are you with the king [Nawaz Sharif], or are you with democracy?”

Comparing the premier to Hosni Mubarak, who ran a dictatorial regime in Egypt, Imran said, “There is no difference between Nawaz Sharif and Mubarak’s regime,” adding that the latter was also complicit in election rigging, used the police for interference, jailed innocent political workers and had the money of his sons, ‘who are like princes’, stashed in banks abroad.

Imran also reminded the nation of the past anti-democratic antics of the PML-N and the Sharif brothers, including the attack on the Supreme Court and siphoning off billions of rupees of public money.

Imran said he would disclose his future agenda on August 14 at D-Chowk. He will disclose names of all the players behind the election rigging on August 10 (today). “If the PML-N has the genuine mandate of the people, then why it is scared of protests?” he questioned.“The undemocratic approach of the PML-N shows that the Sharif brothers were never democrats.”


No demand for recount in 10 constituencies, says PTI

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Central Information Secretary Shireen Mazari categorically stated that her party had never sent any proposal to the government seeking a recount of votes in 10 constituencies of the National Assembly.

Imran Khan had made the party’s position very clear in his press conference on Friday where he stated that all demands would be put forward on August 14, when the Azadi March arrives in Islamabad, Mazari maintained. “So the question of 10 constituencies is absurd.”

Mazari also stated that the prime minister should not be using the issue of national security as a means of plugging his political agenda and personal security fears over the Azadi March.

She also condemned the Punjab government’s ‘fascist tendencies’ which is pushing the government towards the derailment of democracy, which is ‘simply unacceptable’.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10^th, 2014.