ISLAMABAD: National Party (NP) president Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo has said that his party has no rivalry with the government and demanded that true representatives of people be allowed to rule the country.

Speaking at a news conference at the Parliament Lodges here on Monday, the NP chief said that election reforms should be made and steps be taken to strengthen state institutions.

“The goal of our campaign is to bring reforms rather than topple the government. Next governments will also fail to deliver, just like the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, if ‘favourites’ are brought into power. Issues of the people are not being addressed and the country’s economy is moving towards default,” Mr Bizenjo, who is also a Senator, said.

“It is unfortunate that we have not developed our electoral systems. Over the years people of choice were brought into the corridors of power. Now only option is to hold free and fair elections to recover from the loss caused by experiments made by the establishment over the past 70 years,” he claimed.

Mr Bizenjo said that Pakistan would start progressing if only two back-to-back free and fair elections were held in the country.

The NP president said his party’s Khyber Pakhtun­khwa chapter general secretary Idrees Khattak, along with his driver, was kidnapped a few days ago from Swabi interchange.

“The kidnappers, who were in plain clothes, had released the driver two days after the incident, but did not free Mr Khattak. It is unfortunate that people like Mr Khattak, who is a human rights activist, are being disappeared. Such incidents are not good for the country,” he said.

NP Punjab president Ayub Malik was also present at the press conference.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2019