MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday said that his party is not being taken into confidence on electoral reforms despite being an important stakeholder.
“Section 9 of the Election Act 2017 is very vague,” he said while talking to the media at the district court in Multan.
JEE News reported last week that the Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms has expedited work on amendments to electoral laws after examining 73 reform proposals submitted to it.
The PTI VC criticized the main coalition party and said: “[PML-N] is prone to instability.
“PTI chairman gets relief from courts despite government filing cases against him.”
Additionally, Qureshi commented on the Prime Minister’s announcement to dissolve the Assembly before its scheduled date.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced that his government would leave before completing its term.
“Next month our government will complete its term. We will leave before the end of our term and a caretaker government will come in,” he said.
If the government did this, it could buy time before the elections because according to the constitution, if the assemblies are dissolved prematurely, the elections will be held after 90 days. If they are dissolved, the constitution mandates elections within 60 days.
Talking about this issue, Shah Mehmood Qureshi remarked that it seems that the government is leaning towards 90-day elections, but the date of the election will have to be given to the Election Commission.
Dubai huddle
Just days after two major coalition partners – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) – held talks in Dubai, Qureshi also said that the Gulf state’s No one was aware of the conversation.
The PTI vice-chairman said the “decisions taken in Dubai” had been sealed by the “Lahore meeting” – a reference to the meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
While the agenda of the meeting was never made public, it is believed that the leaders of the coalition government discussed important issues including the current economic challenges and the upcoming general elections.
Then, Zardari met Prime Minister Shehbaz in Lahore over the weekend. In the meeting, the overall political situation of the country, caretaker setup and other issues were discussed.
“There has been a conversation between two seniors, and the rest do not know anything about it,” Qureshi said, adding that only time would tell what would happen.
