PESHAWAR: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl emir Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Sunday claimed that Pakistan’s friendly nations were opposed to the return of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khanto power fearing that the former prime minister would waste their financial assistance for the country.

“Our [Pakistan’s] friends have expressed serious apprehensions about the possibility of Imran Khan’s return to power. They told us [Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration] that if Imran regains power, then their money will go to waste,” the JUI-F chief told a public meeting here.

On the occasion, PTI Member of the National Assembly Nasir Musazai announced the joining of the JUI-F.

The JUI-F chief, who also heads the Pakistan Democratic Alliance, which rules the centre, raised questions about the honesty of the former prime minister and insisted that friendly nations didn’t help out Pakistan during the financial crisis when Imran was at the helm of affairs as the prime minister.

Tehreek-i-Insaf MNA Musazai joins JUI-F

He said that friendly countries came to Pakistan’s help only after Imran’s ouster.

“If only you [Imran] are honest and we all are corrupt, then tell us why friendly countries didn’t trust you during your tenure as the PM [and offered financial assistance],” he said.

Mr Fazl said that the former prime minister had ruined the country “financially, culturally and morally.”

He said as the prime minister, Imran failed to deliver on the agenda of his foreign masters, so he was currently doing all he could to return to power to pursue that agenda.

“We [Pakistan Democratic Movement] not only defeated him [Imran] but his foreign masters as well,” he said.

On the occasion, Mr Musazai said that all those behind the current political uncertainty in the country were the nation’s enemy.

“He [Imran] is bent upon dissolving the country and not assemblies,” he said.

The lawmaker said that the PTI chief was a cowardly man, who feared imprisonment.

He criticised the PTI chief for “choosing his wife Bushra Bibi instead of senior leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Asad Umar and Asad Qaiser to lead the party in case of his detention” and sought its justification.

Opposition leader in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Akram Khan Durrani, who was also in attendance, said that the province had been caught in a debt trap and was struggling to handle the serious financial crisis.

He said the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government in the province had left only Rs16 billion debts behind but the amount surged alarmingly during the last two PTI governments.

Mr Durrani also alleged that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had destroyed Pakhtun culture during its nine-year rule in the province and almost four years in the centre.

Mr Musazai, who joined the JUI-F, had contested the National Assembly election many times with first being on a ticket awarded by the Pakistan Muslim League in 2013. He failed to make it to the National Assembly through that election.

He contested election on PML-N ticket in by-polls against the PTI after the death of PTI MNA Gulzar Khan but suffered defeat against. He was defeated by Arbab Amir of the PTI.

Mr Musazai finally won the general election and became the MNA as a PTI nominee in 2018. He submitted his resignation to the PTI chairman in April 2022.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2023