Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday said he has directed the committee conducting dialogue with the ruling alliance to only move forward with talks if the government is willing to dissolve all assemblies ahead of the completion of their constitutional terms.
“I am telling these two if the government is ready to dissolve the National Assembly at once and hold elections then talk,” he told reporters at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) while referring to Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, who were accompanying him. “If they [government] repeats the same talk of holding elections in September or October then there is no need [to continue dialogue],” he added.
Qureshi and Fawad, along with Senator Ali Zafar, comprise the three-member committee designated by the PTI to advance talks with the ruling alliance and end an impasse over simultaneous elections nationwide. The committee held the first round of talks on Thursday, presenting its demands to the government, with the government delegation informing them it would place the suggestions before their parties’ leadership. The talks will resume today, with the PTI maintaining that it would inform the Supreme Court of any progress on Monday. Khan’s statement, meanwhile, stands in direct contrast to remarks uttered by Qureshi a day earlier, when he had claimed that the PTI chief had granted the committee “full authority” to decide on how to proceed with talks.
In his media interaction at the IHC, the PTI chief said resolving the elections delay was now in the hands of the government. “If elections [in Punjab] are not held on May 14 it means Constitution is torn apart,” he claimed, without making any mention of the delay of polls in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. “If the Constitution is violated then whoever has power will have his way,” he said. “The Constitution is supreme not the Parliament,” he added.
Reportedly, the first day of talks concluded after a two-hour meeting in which the PTI tabled three demands: Nationwide elections should be held in July; all national and provincial assemblies should be dissolved in May and a constitutional amendment adopted to allow for delaying polls beyond May 14; if a constitutional amendment is required, the PTI’s resigned MNAs should be allowed to return to the National Assembly prior to any vote.