LAHORE: Giving a reference to a Transparency International report, Federal Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry says the report has suggested that the people of Pakistan think that the country’s judicial system is in a shambles that needs reforms.

“The judicial system will not reform until the government, the opposition and judiciary won’t sit together.”

“It will be better if the opposition sits with the government, reforms the election process for holding the next elections in a free and fair manner and lets the winner form the next government,” he suggested while speaking at a press conference here on Sunday.

Mr Chaudhry asked the opposition parties to come out of Imran Khan phobia after failure of their two-and-a-half years struggle to oust the PTI government.

“If you (opposition) want to continue with this effort for another year, it is your choice.”

The federal minister urged the opposition parties to cooperate with the government for reforming the Election Commission of Pakistan and judiciary, adding that all the stakeholders, including the government, and the people had reservations about the working of these institutions. He said the government and the opposition both agreed that the Senate and Daska election were not fair and this warranted that the system needed reforms.

Fawad Chaudhry stressed that reforms were needed to run the election process in Pakistan in a fair and transparent manner.

“In this age of technology and transformation, the PTI government wants to adopt an electronic voting system to declare results within seconds after polling and with minimum chances of corruption and rigging.”

The federal minister said the true leaders of the PML-N and PPP should take notice of their leaders’ childish policies whose decisions were squeezing their established political parties in the country.

“The PML-N and PPP should review their policies and politics and take steps towards national politics,” he suggested to the opposition parties while lauding the PPP for, what he called, withdrawing itself from PML-N and PDM’s do-or-die politics, referring to the PPP’s stakes in the current system with government in Sindh when Maryam Nawaz and Maulana Fazlur Rahman had no stakes in the system.

Mr Chaudhry also said the PTI was the only party in the country that could field its candidates in more than 1,000 constituencies out of total 1,150 constituencies.

He did not go much in the question of showing some sympathy towards Maryam Nawaz (regarding her health), saying that Nawaz Sharif’s cronies had created a drama and took him out of Pakistan. He said treatment of every person, including Maryam Nawaz, should be held in Pakistan.

The federal minister hoped that the committee that had done Nawaz’s tests wouldn’t do Maryam’s.

Fawad chided the Punjab bureaucracy for its failure to resolve Lahore’s problems, including waste disposal.

“The Punjab chief secretary and Lahore commissioner should go home if they could not solve Lahore’s waste collection problems,” he said and added that Prime Minister Imran Khan could not involve himself to resolve such issues. He said it was the duty of the provincial governments in Lahore as well as Karachi to introduce projects to produce energy from waste.

The PM had warned the officers who were not performing of being sacked, he said but added that all implementation work could not be left to bureaucracy alone.

Answering a question, the federal minister said the Buzdar government was running successfully and added that Buzdar would keep holding office till he enjoyed prime minister’s confidence.

Mr Chaudhry said the Ramazan moon would be sighted on April 13 and the nation would have its first fast on April 14. However, he added that he had been told by the Federal Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri that the moon sighting would be announced by the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2021