QUETTA, Feb 7: Caretaker Information Minister Nisar Memon has said that the government will not allow Commonwealth observers to monitor the Feb 18 elections till they restore the membership of Pakistan.

Responding to newsmen’s questions at a pre-election conference here on Thursday, he said: “If the Commonwealth recognises us then we will recognise them.”

The conference was organised by the Press Information Department to elicit media’s suggestions about the coming elections.

Referring to the boycott campaign of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), the federal minister said the government would not allow anyone to create hurdles on the polling day.

He added that no wheel-jam strike would be allowed in Balochistan.

Mr Memon said that major political parties had been participating in the election after which an elected government would be formed.

On the polling day, he said, the government would give magisterial powers to all administrative officers to maintain law and order.

About the opposition’s demand for suspension of nazims, the minister said that if they were suspended now then someone might demand that the National Assembly members should be also suspended during the local bodies’ elections?

Earlier provincial Information Minister Yahya Khan Nasar, home secretary Balochistan Furqan Bahadur Khan and provincial election commissioner Sono Khan Baloch also spoke at the conference.

They informed that all arrangements had been made for holding peaceful, free, fair and transparent elections in the province.