MULTAN: Veteran politician Javed Hashmi has said the government to be formed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf will be too weak to deliver and other parties will have to help its chairman Imran Khan to save the democracy in the country.

“The PTI is not in a position to rule due its internal differences. All the other political parties should help Imran Khan. We have to fight another war to protect the democracy. This (PTI’s) government will complete hardly one year and the next face (of government) will not be a democratic one,” he said talking to the media here on Sunday.

Mr Hashmi said he had already predicted that a hung parliament was going to be formed after the election.

He regretted the country was faced with a political crisis after the general election and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf was busy in horse trading.

“Every tactic is being used for (winning) the number game as many of the winning independent parliamentarians (-elect) have said that money is being offered to them,” he said. He said no party had a majority in the Center and there was total dependence on independent parliamentarians to form the government.

He said the election results had created a difficult situation for Imran Khan because his party could not get sufficient mandate to form the government. Mr Hashmi said the next government would be very weak and won’t be able to resolve the issues of the masses.

“A party which will form the government with the majority of a few votes will be unable to deliver,” he added.

In a reference to the PTI chairman’s claim during the election campaign that his government would get rid of foreign loans, he said: “Imran Khan had announced that he won’t get loans from international institutions, but his would-be finance minister (Mr Asad Umar) is now saying that they will have to approach foreign money lenders,” he said. He alleged that the PTI was even not in a position to fulfill its 100-day agenda.

“Imran Khan will not be able to fulfill his promises with a borrowed mandate,” he said.

“Other parties will have to support Imran Khan if he failed (to fulfill his promises), as the forces which brought him into power will oust him,” he said.

He said nobody, including him, was ready to accept the election results as “aliens had managed Imran Khan’s victory” . He said PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood was now saying that his own party “played a game” with him.

He said Imran Khan should fulfill his promise of creating a separate province of south Punjab.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2018