ISLAMABAD: Talks between the government and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) seem to be at a dead end after the latter rejected the latest draft suggesting a new ‘scope of inquiry’ for the proposed judicial commission on alleged poll rigging, which was sent to the party by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

Speaking at a news conference here on Saturday, the finance minister claimed that he had emailed PTI leader Asad Umar, suggesting a one-point ‘scope of inquiry’ for the commission.

The minister said that Mr Umar, who is a member of the PTI’s negotiating team, had assured him that he would respond after discussing the suggestion with his party’s leadership.

Asad Umar rejects Ishaq Dar’s latest draft of proposed judicial commission’s scope of inquiry

But Mr Umar told Dawn that they had rejected the proposed change, saying that he had already told Mr Dar over the phone that the new document was not acceptable to the PTI.

“This is a non-starter. We have been going around in circles and are heading nowhere,” Mr Umar said, adding that he had conveyed this to Mr Dar as well before the minister was going to address a news conference.

The PTI leader quoted Mr Dar as saying that now the matter would only be resolved between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and PTI chairman Imran Khan as things had now gone beyond the scope of the negotiators from both sides.

Flanked by Minister of State Anusha Rehman, Mr Dar also distributed copies of the drafts that had been exchanged between the two sides on Dec 30 and 31, containing the three controversial points and a copy of the email he had sent to Mr Umar.

He said, “We want the commission to come out with a simple ‘Yes or No’ answer, otherwise things may get complicated.”

But hours after Mr Dar’s news conference, the PTI chief threatened to use the party’s street power once again if the government did not constitute the judicial commission on its terms.

“I want to make it clear to the government that the PTI is giving them time. Don’t be mistaken. We have the street power and we will use it. The day we give the call to shut down the country, you will not be able to continue running the government,” Mr Khan said in a brief chat with reporters outside his Bani Gala residence after his return from Saudi Arabia, where he had gone to perform Umrah with his wife Reham Khan.

Mr Khan once again accused former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, former Supreme Court judge Khalilur Rehman Ramday and former caretaker Punjab chief minister Najam Sethi of rigging the elections with the help of returning officers (ROs).

Commenting on a Rs20 billion defamation notice served on him by the former chief justice, the PTI chairman said that he couldn’t wait to face Mr Chaudhry in court.

“I will prove before the judicial commission how Iftikhar Chaudhry and Ramday controlled the ROs and hatched a conspiracy against democracy,” he said, demanding that the two ex-judges be tried for treason under Article 6 of the Constitution.

Mr Khan asked why the PML-N was afraid of the PTI’s draft law for the judicial commission if it had done nothing wrong in the elections.

He said the PML-N did not want the commission to take up cases which had already been decided by election tribunals or were pending before them, whereas the PTI wanted the commission to take up all of them.

The PTI chief ruled out the possibility of returning to the national, Punjab and Sindh assemblies, terming them “disputed”. He said if any PTI member returned to the assemblies, he would be thrown out of the party.

In reply to a question, he said the PTI would take part in the Senate elections from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly alone, terming it a “legitimate assembly”. He said he was ready to form a judicial commission in KP and open all constituencies if anyone had doubts about the fairness of the elections in the province.

Earlier, at his press conference, Finance Minister Dar blamed the PTI for the delay in the formation of the commission, saying the government could form it through an ordinance within seven working days if the opposition party agreed to any one of the two drafts that his team had proposed to it.

The minister was of the opinion that the matter could be resolved in half an hour, if the PTI chairman sat calmly and thought it over.

He said there could be “systematic flaws” in the elections due to negligence of the polling staff and it was not right to accuse any political party of rigging on that basis.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2015

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