No compromise: PTI not to return to assemblies

Imran says the party will take to the streets if the commission is not formed

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will participate in the upcoming Senate elections but only from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), the province where the party is in power. “We will participate in the Senate elections only from K-P as elections in the province are not disputed,” PTI Chairman Imran Khan said while addressing the media on Saturday.

He also challenged his political rivals to point out rigging in the K-P elections, saying the PTI would not waste any time to constitute a judicial commission for investigations, if demanded. Though the PTI chairman announced the party would partially participate in the Senate elections, he said his party’s lawmakers would not return to other assemblies. “It is out of the question that we go back to those assemblies,” he added. “We would have only returned to these assemblies had the judicial commission declared there was no rigging in the general elections.”

Responding to a question about the resignations from the assemblies, Imran said, “Our resignations should be accepted [as it happened in Sindh]. No PTI member would go to these assemblies and in case someone tried to do that he would no longer remain in the PTI.”

PTI warning

Imran issued another warning to the government, saying that his party would come out on the streets if a judicial commission was not constituted to investigate rigging allegations. “We supported the government in the wake of the Peshawar school massacre and are giving it time, but there should not be any misunderstanding,” he said. “We will come out since we have street power and can bring the government to a standstill.”

The PTI leader said the PML-N was dragging its feet on empowering the proposed commission. “The time has come to disclose the PML-N draft for the judicial commission and what we are demanding,” he added. “The PML-N proposed that the decisions of election tribunals should not be put before the commission, which is of no use as the entire fraud was carried out by the tribunals,” Imran said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2015.