Aam Admi Movement: Former general launches party aimed at ending 'feudal politics'

Published January 17, 2022
Retired Maj Gen Saad Khattak addresses the launching ceremony of his party at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday. — Facebook screengrab
Retired Maj Gen Saad Khattak addresses the launching ceremony of his party at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday. — Facebook screengrab

Former army officer and diplomat retired Maj Gen Saad Khattak on Sunday launched the Pakistan Aam Admi Movement (Paam), a political party that he said was aimed at ending feudal politics and bringing the common man to power.

Addressing the launch ceremony of his party at the Karachi Press Club, Khattak said it would emerge as the true representative party of the masses and bring ordinary people to power, unlike other parties that had used the general public for their vested interests.

“The time has come to give an opportunity to new blood in politics by ending the politics dominated by families, feudals, and capitalists,” the retired general said, regretting that the country's ruling elite had rendered the common man "irrelevant" in politics.

Terming Paam as "a movement to provide a political platform to the common man and to end the yoke of the elite", Khattak said the party would strive for changing the system in the country.

“The present judicial system has failed to deliver justice,” he said, adding that their aim was to bring a modern, responsible and effective judicial system.

Khattak is a former high commissioner of Pakistan to Sri Lanka. Over the course of his 35-year military career, Khattak held various operational, training, leadership and managerial assignments, and remained actively involved in security and counter-terrorism operations in Balochistan and the formerly Fata.

To a question on Sunday, Khattak said his party supported the local bodies system but expressed solidarity with the Jamaat-i-Islami’s protest against the recently passed local government law in Sindh.

He stressed that real change would occur when the powers were delegated to the lower levels.

The acting chairman of the party, Imtiaz Ahmed, said Paam would emerge as a "real democratic party", with every worker getting an opportunity to contest for the post of the party’s head. He clarified that at present, all posts in the party were temporary and intra-party elections would be conducted after concluding membership of the party.

He said Paam was an appropriate platform for the youth and women who wanted to bring a change in the country through politics.

On the occassion, Paam leaders also shared the party’s manifesto with journalists. The manifesto focuses on e-governance, education, health, empowering the youth, environment, law and order and the justice system.

Paam was registered at the Election Commission of Pakistan in November 2021; however, its launching ceremony was held at the KPC on Sunday.

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