ISLAMABAD: Senior vice presidents of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Dr Shireen Mazari and Fawad Chaudhry hailed the ‘historic’ step taken by President Arif Alvi and appealed to the people to start preparations for elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.

In a statement issued on Monday, the senior leadership of the party said by announcing the elections in the two provinces, President Alvi took a ‘correct, constitutional’ step to protect the constitution.

Mr Fawad said the entire nation stood behind the “historic” step of the president.

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) “refused to go for consultation, thus violating the Election Act. Hence President acted to preserve requirement of Constitution”, wrote Dr Mazari on her Twitter handle.

Targeting judiciary, doctoring tapes

Dr Mazari accused Maryam Nawaz of pursuing her father Nawaz Sharif’s strategy of targeting senior judiciary and creating and doctoring audios and videos ‘with support of conspirators’.

<Mazari accuses Maryam of targeting senior judiciary

“After all, this is the political lot that openly seeks to bribe and where that doesn’t work to use violence as we saw in storming of the SC,” the PTI leader remarked, referring to the 1997 attack on the apex court building by an unruly mob.

She alleged that a propaganda factory was working overtime in violation of the law of the land, as practice of creating and doctoring audios and videos had found “technical and political support from the conspirators”.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2023