Istehkam-i-Pakistan rally: PML-N workers prepare for show of strength

Party leaders criticise PTI, PAT ‘clash of personalities’; focus on issues, party says.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has planned a show of strength to counter the opposition’s sit-ins by holding ‘Istehkam-i-Pakistan rallies’ across the country today (Monday). In Lahore, the rally will proceed from Mozang Chungi to Charring Cross, The Mall. Party workers headed to Lahore from other parts of Punjab on Sunday, bearing Pakistan and PML-N flags and banners.

“It was hard to keep our workers from coming out and reacting to the kind of strong language that was being used by Imran Khan,” MNA Shaza Fatima Khawaja told The Express Tribune. “I think that it is high time the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek reach a middle ground with the government as it will be for their own good.”

Responding to the PTI’s demand for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down from office for 30 days, Khawaja said, “The PM’s resignation for even a day is out of the question, for the sake of a sustained and strengthened democracy and a strong writ of the state.” She added, “This would also set a precedent where anyone who brings out 15,000 people will demand the resignation of an elected prime minister.”

“On Saturday, PTI ended negotiations on a very illogical demand, saying that the PML-N government can stay but the prime minister should resign,” Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said. The PML-N has agreed to all conditions for a transparent investigation by Supreme Court judges into allegations of rigging in the 2013 elections, he said, but PTI has refused to give in.

Iqbal said any change for 30 days would make Pakistan look ‘unstable’. “We also agreed to a mechanism for electoral reform, but we fail to understand why PTI isn’t focusing on the issues instead of making this a clash of personalities,” he said. “The National Assembly and Senate have passed unanimous resolutions asking the PM not to resign. PTI must not isolate itself nationally and should quit egoistic politics.”

PML-N leader Chaudhry Muneebul Haq from Okara is leading a caravan of hundreds of workers to Lahore for the rallies. “We are doing this to show solidarity with the prime minister, the Constitution and democracy,” he said.

Meanwhile MPA Azma Zahid Bokhari told The Express Tribune that PTI and PAT are ‘trying to derail six decades of struggle for a democratic federation’. “Let me tell them that the people will not let them steal the mandate of 180 million people who elected Nawaz Sharif,” she said.

“After the PM’s offer of a three-member judicial commission, there is no justification left for a protest march,” said MPA Syed Raza Ali Gillani. He said the demand for the PM’s resignation is ‘undemocratic and unconstitutional’.

Meanwhile, Syed Tehreem Abbas Naqvi, a PML-N leader from Mandi Bahauddin said, “Qadri’s designs are meant to create havoc that could result in mayhem and a breakdown of constitutional machinery. But what Imran Khan is doing may also help those authoritarian forces who have never reconciled with the democratic set-up.” He added, “We warn both the PTI and the PAT not to play into the hands of those who want to turn Pakistan into another Iraq or Libya.” Naqvi emphasised that the rallies today will be peaceful.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2014.