• Bilawal condemns Centre’s ‘interference in elections’
• PML-N says decision taken in light of MPC declaration
ISLAMABAD: Amid rising political tension, opposition parties have intensified consultative process to offer a final shape to their anti-government drive and as a primary step towards implementing their 26-point declaration, decided to remain faraway from a gathering of the parliamentary leaders convened by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser tomorrow (on Monday) to debate the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).
The decision to boycott the NA Speaker’s meeting was officially announced by Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari through his official social media account on Twitter after reports that Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had talked to deposed prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif over the phone and discussed the decide to provides a formal shape to the newly-formed opposition alliance with the name of Pakistan Democratic Movement.
Also, Mr Bhutto-Zardari nominated former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf to represent the party within the committee to plan the longer term strategy from the PDM platform.
ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD
In Lahore, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president and Leader of the Opposition within the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif endorsed the hard-hitting speech of his elder brother at the multiparty conference (MPC) of the opposition and said the choice of resigning from the assemblies was under serious consideration. This was his first interaction with journalists after the September 20 conference, which was followed by reports a few PML-N leader’s secret meeting with the military leadership.
President Arif Alvi had last week notified November 15 because the date for the elections on 24 general seats of the GB legislature over four months after it had completed its five-year term bringing an end to PML-N’s rule out the strategically-located region. The polling was initially scheduled to be held August 18, but it had been postponed thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘Interference’ in elections condemned
“The Speaker NA and therefore the federal ministers don't have anything to try to to with the elections in GB. We condemn the interference of the federal with elections. My party will only be engaging with the committee GB on our demands for fair elections,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari tweeted while announcing the choice to boycott the parliamentary leaders’ meeting.
PPP’s vice-president Sherry Rehman, when contacted to understand the rationale behind the party’s decision, said her party believed that the National Assembly speaker had no mandate to debate the elections in Gilgit-Baltistan. Moreover, she said, the opposition parties didn't want to possess any engagement with the speaker after the controversial role he had played in bulldozing the recent legislations during the joint sitting of the parliament.
Similarly, PML-N’s information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb told Dawn that the PML-N had decided to remain faraway from the speaker’s meeting in light of the MPC declaration. She made it clear that through the MPC declaration, the opposition parties had already announced that in future they might not cooperate with the “selected and fraud government” inside and out of doors the parliament.
PML-N’s Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal said the federal ministers and therefore the speaker had no locus standi on the difficulty of the GB elections. The federal should immediately disengage itself from all the activities associated with the elections in GB, he said, adding that there should are a ban on the visits of federal ministers to the region after the announcement of the election schedule.
Speaker Asad Qaiser had sent letters to the parliamentary leaders of all the parties having representation within the National Assembly, inviting them to the meeting being convened on the difficulty of GB elections. Prominent among those that had been invited were Shahbaz Sharif, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, secretary of state Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Balochistan National Party-Mengal chief Sardar Akhtar Mengal, Asad Mehmood of the JUI-F, Chaudhry Tariq Bashir Cheema of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
The NA speaker within the letter had stated that some circles were expressing concerns and doubts about the transparency within the GB elections. He claimed that he was convening the meeting in order that the parliamentary leaders could suggest steps for ensuring transparency within the GB polls.
The PML-N Secretary General said it had been actually the responsibility of the Chief Election Commissioner of Gilgit-Baltistan to announce a Code of Conduct for the elections after consulting all the political parties. In fact, he said, the federal should even be stopped from announcing development projects in GB. He warned the federal against making any effort to rig the GB polls and said any such action would be against the national interest and national security.
He said free, fair and transparent elections in GB were within the interest of Pakistan because it couldn't afford to possess any political controversy or dispute within the region that already had become a flashpoint. He explained that GB was a “sensitive area” and a flashpoint within the region, because the enemies were trying to find excuses to spoil the law and order situation there.
The NA speaker took the initiative on the sensitive issue each day after the opposition and therefore the government had agreed to carry consultations on the proposal of granting “provisional provincial status” to GB after the elections.
The representatives of the govt and therefore the refore the opposition parties had also discussed the upcoming GB elections and the proposal to grant it a ‘provisional provincial status” during a meeting with Chief of the military Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Director General of the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed on September 16.
A day after the opposition’s MPC, the disclosure of the safety meeting on GB by federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed stirred a replacement debate within the country with few criticising the politicians for, what they called, maintaining secret contacts with the military and therefore the others raising fingers on the military for indulging in political matters.
Meanwhile, a gathering of the National Assembly committee on Parliamentary Affairs is additionally scheduled to be persisted Monday on the one-point agenda of discussing the GB polls. The opposition parties are thus far undecided about participation within the meeting.
Despite repeated attempts, the National Assembly speaker couldn't be approached for his comments over the event .
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