LAHORE: Boycott of one election after another has made the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers cynical about electoral policy of the party and also critical of its ‘unconditional’ support to ‘cousins-in-sit-in’ Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

The reservations surfaced at a meeting of the PAT Federal Council which met here on Sunday for the first time after the last year’s sit-in.

One of the workers told Dawn that they asked the leadership whether it meant (political) business this time or like in the past would opt out of the electoral politics for one reason or the other.

Boycott of elections a couple of times in the past, he said, had shaken confidence of those who did constituency politics and they were reluctant now thinking whether they should consume their energies and funds in preparations for next elections or not in the wake of a clear party policy in this respect.

PAT President Raheeq Abbasi, however, told them that the boycott was because of ‘unconstitutional’ Election Commission. But as all other means to change the system had been exhausted without any success, it had been decided now to change the system by becoming a part of it.

Some participants suggested that the PAT should be totally separated from Minhajul Quran to make the former a purely ‘secular political party’ that would focus only on electoral politics.

The PTI remained a target of criticism during the meeting for what a participant said its solo flights in taking advantage of ‘fruits’ of the sit-in and in the Cantonment elections.

Recalling unconditional PAT support for the PTI nominees in AJK and Nankana Sahib by-polls, the participants regretted that the latter did not reciprocate in the Cantonment polls.

They also noted that neither PTI chairman Imran Khan nor other leaders of the party had uttered even a single word to show solidarity with the PAT on registration of cases against the latter’s leadership and workers.

More than 1,200 PAT workers were under trial and a few of them had been given five-year jail term on cases registered during Islamabad sit-in, a PAT official claimed, pointing out that none of the PTI workers was behind the bars under the charges.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2015

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