LAHORE: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan will announce the date for dissolution of assemblies on December 17.
After holding back-to-back consultations with his party’s leadership, Imran Khan announced that he would announce the dissolution date of both assemblies — Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — on December 17.
“In a party gathering at Lahore’s Liberty Chowk, I will give my nation the date for the dissolution of the KP and Punjab assemblies,” he said in an address to the nation.
The former premier said that the dissolution of assemblies would pave the way for elections.
“The law says that as soon as assemblies are dissolved, elections should be held within 90 days. So on Dec 17, I will give the date and after that 70 per cent of the country will go into election mode.
“Logically, if elections are held in 70pc of the country […] then they might just hold general elections. But it is our misfortune that criminals are sitting [in the government] and they don’t care about the country,” he said.
Khan’s address came after he consulted the party’s senior leadership today on important political and economic matters that “required his party to take action”.
“Once we dissolve both the assemblies, we will hold elections in the provinces. Also, our 123-125 National Assembly members — whose resignations have not been accepted — will ask the speaker inside the assembly to accept their resignations.”
Khan said the coalition rulers were worried that if they step down then another government would be formed and their corruption cases would be reopened.
“Their interests and the nation’s interests are poles apart.”
“I have never seen cases of big dacoits being closed in my 70 years of experience. I am sure that even banana republics don’t do such things,” the ex-premier said.
The PTI chief said no country can progress without rule of law and justice as he claimed that Pakistan was on the “brink of destruction” as there was “no rule of law”.
“Why are we here? Because the poor people are in jail as powerful people are receiving NROs, getting their cases closed, and coming back to the country,” the ex-prime minister said.
Khan said documentaries have been shot and books written on the corruption of two families that belong to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
“It is so saddening that Suleman Shehbaz came back to Pakistan and addressed a press conference claiming that he was a victim,” Khan said as he asked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s son the reason behind the death of the people involved in the case.
“How did all the witnesses die of heart attacks in his money laundering case? Someone should investigate this case. Also, Ishaq Dar has also been given a clean chit […] when he was asked for the receipts of his income, he flew abroad on the prime minister’s plane.”
The PTI chief said even the people belonging to the “Zardari mafia” will be forgiven, including his sister Faryal Talpur. “The powerful can only survive here.”
The cricketer-turned-politician said that anybody who understands the economy knows that the first rule is to ensure there is political stability as “markets can’t perform under uncertain situations”.
“Investors and businessmen are reluctant to invest their money as the risk of default has grown to 100% as compared to 5% which was left behind by PTI,” he added.
