ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which contested general election without having its actual symbol of cricket bat, has decided to join the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) to form the government in the Centre and Punjab, and join the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to get its due share in reserved seats.

The party has also decided to appoint Malik Amir Dogar as the chief whip in the National Assembly once again.

MWM chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas has welcomed the PTI move, saying that it was the party of Imran Khan and all decisions of Mr Khan will be implemented unconditionally.

Speaking to a news conference, PTI Central Information Secretary Raoof Hasan said his party’s founding chairman Imran Khan had given the go-ahead to the party to forge a coalition with the MWM in the Centre and Punjab, claiming that the PTI had a clear-cut majority with 180 seats in the National Assembly.

It is worth mentioning that it was the first meeting of Raoof Hasan with Imran Khan in Adiala Jail since the incarceration of Mr Khan. He claimed that the PTI would form a coalition government with JI in KP to get the reserved seats.

For KP, JI will be approached to secure due share in reserved seats

“On the instructions of Imran Khan, we will form the government in two provinces and will redouble our efforts to form a government in the Center, as well,” he said.

About the party elections, he said directions had been given to hold the PTI intra-party elections soon.

Mr Hasan said he (Mr Khan) shared his concerns about the prevailing situation in the country as he thought the country was heading fast towards an economic disaster. He said Imran emphasised that everyone’s top priority should be to improve Pakistan’s financial health, adding that he believed that going to the IMF would not be the viable option because it attached severe conditions with their funding that would further compound the miseries of the inflation-ridden and poverty-stricken masses.

Therefore, Mr Hasan added, as per Mr Khan, the best option was to get the country out of the economic quagmire by luring the expatriates and large multinational corporation companies to invest in Pakistan that could improve the economy of the country. However, he said it was only possible with a politically stable and public mandated government.

“We do not have enough time and decisions should be made at the earliest,” he declared, as efforts were going on to impose the ‘money laundering syndicate’ on the country thus further escalating Pakistan’s economic problems.

He said voters expressed their confidence in the PTI that won 180 NA seats as per Form 45; however, these were drastically reduced through ‘fraud’. He said PTI would continue its struggle within the ambit of the constitution to get back the ‘stolen’ mandate.

MWM stands by ‘friends’

MWM head Raja Nasir Abbas said it was the track record of his party that it never became liability or demanding for any coalition partner and it always stood by friends. However, he hoped that Mr Khan would play a role to say no to slavery of big powers and form good relations with the Muslim countries. He also hoped that the coalition would also play a role to get constitutional rights for Gilgit Baltistan.

Earlier, the PTI’s chief election observer retired Brig Musaddiq Abbasi told a presser about “unprecedented rigging”.

In a statement, the PTI demanded that the public mandate must be respected because it was pre-requisite to survival and strength of the state and PTI founding chairman Imran Khan should be released instantly since he was the only leader who could pull the country out of the prevailing quagmire of problems.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2024