LAHORE: Senior PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry has urged the coalition government at the centre to sit down with the PTI and deliberate on the electoral framework for general elections across the country in one go.

“Otherwise, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies will be dissolved in a few days, necessitating elections for roughly 60% of electoral seats in the next 90 days,” Mr Chaudhry told reporters at Imran Khan’s Zaman Park mansion on Friday.

“It will be pretty strange for the government to hold elections on 60% of the seats and then go into this massive effort again in the next few months,” he added, emphasising the importance of a consensus electoral framework for a peaceful transition in the country.

Since the advice to dissolve the Punjab Assembly reached the Governor House on Thursday night, the former federal minister stressed that the governor should not wait another 24 hours before issuing orders to dissolve the assembly. He said the governor’s order would help begin the process of installing an interim government.

The PTI leader stated that the party will send three nominees to Chief Minister Parvez Elahi and hoped that the opposition leader would suggest the names of three impartial candidates so that a consensus could be developed and an interim chief minister appointed—to hold free, fair, and credible elections in the province.

He said he had come to know that the PML-N had decided not to give tickets to the 20 people, who had ditched the PTI in the Punjab Assembly.

He said KP CM Mahmood Khan and his cabinet members could not come to meet Mr Khan and discuss the KP assembly dissolution. He was told they could not come due to rough weather.

Mr Khan, he said, consulted the party legislators in the KP on phone and was told that the advice to the KP governor for dissolution of KP Assembly had been prepared. The KP legislators were told that the advice should be forwarded to the KP Governor soon after the Punjab government is dissolved.

He lauded the ECP for going ahead with the election plan in Karachi and Hyderabad. He urged the Supreme Court to take notice of the violation of the Islamabad High Court order on local government elections in Islamabad.

He expressed his grave concern over the reports of pressure tactics being exerted on the members of the Joint Investigation Team.

He said he was concerned over businessmen’s protests against banks and stated that the country was heading towards a severe financial crisis.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2023