MULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday that the recent meeting between the prime minister and the chief justice of Pakistan would help defuse the prevailing political tension in the country.

Talking to reporters here, he said that the prime minister’s decision to hold a meeting with the chief justice was a proof that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had changed its policy of criticising the judiciary. “There should be no confrontation between institutions,” he said.

Mr Qureshi rejected the options of judicial martial law or an NRO-like deal, a reference to the 2007’s National Reconciliation Ordinance. He said the government and the opposition should choose such a person for the position of the interim prime minister who could ensure holding of transparent general elections in the country. He called for changing some bureaucrats in Punjab before the elections.

Mr Qureshi condemned the statement of PM Abbasi in which he criticised the process through which Sadiq Sanjrani was elected chairman of the Senate. He said if the prime minister had reservations over Mr Sanjrani’s election he should challenge it in courts.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2018