By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of main opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party called on the government on Wednesday to engage in unconditional talks, insisting that no topics should be off the table if dialogue is to succeed.
Speaking to reporters outside the National Assembly, Khan argued that limiting negotiations to specific issues would undermine the process entirely. “It is wrong to say that negotiations will be held on this topic but this topic cannot be included in negotiations,” he said. “If you want to hold dialogue, you should speak on all topics.”
But in the same breath, he acknowledged his own limits in the process. The authority to negotiate, he said, rests with Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, the newly appointed opposition leaders in the National Assembly and Senate. This setup, backed by PTI’s imprisoned founder, Imran Khan, reflects the party’s careful maneuvering amid a storm of legal cases and protests.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s chief minister, Sohail Afridi, confirmed that Khan — the ex-prime minister whose ouster in 2022 ignited the ongoing political crisis — has handed the reins to these two for decisions on talks or rallies. “I’ll offer my input if they ask,” Khan added, a nod to his advisory role in a party that has seen its ranks thinned by arrests and defections.
The call for unconditional dialogue arrives at a precarious moment for Pakistan, where economic hardship and institutional clashes have left citizens weary of the perpetual tug-of-war between the ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the PTI, which has accused the government of rigging the 2024 elections and suppressing dissent.
Prime Minister Sharif extended an olive branch last month, but with caveats — talks only on “legitimate matters.” PTI’s response has been unyielding. No progress without access to Imran Khan, whose lawyers have been barred from meetings, a point Khan drove home after a party delegation met with National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq. Khan didn’t mince words on the government’s tactics. “The stick and carrot policy does not work,” he said. “Throwing a punch with one hand and extending the other one does not work.” If reconciliation is the goal, he urged, the government should extend both hands.
Just days before Achakzai, in his debut speech as opposition leader, offered “unconditional support” to bolster Parliament, a rare conciliatory signal in a chamber often defined by acrimony. Yet the olive branches coexist with barbs. On the same day, PTI issued a scathing rejection of the National Assembly’s approval of the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2026, calling it a brazen attack on transparency. The bill lets lawmakers shield their asset details under the banner of “security concerns,” a move the party slammed as a license for the elite to hide corruption.
“This bill grants parliamentarians the ability to hide details of their assets from the public under the vague and undefined guise of ‘security concerns,’ which essentially provides a legal shield for the current ruling class,” the PTI statement read. It accused parties that tout democracy of now crafting laws to conceal “ill-gotten wealth” from “corrupt practices and misuse of power.” “The nation is well aware of the sources of their illicit wealth; it is the result of corruption, looting, and the abuse of authority,” the statement continued. “The public is fully informed, and no law can hide the truth. This bill is an affront to the consciousness of the people.”
PTI argued that real threats demand protection, not opacity, and warned that the change flouts global norms, dooming Pakistan to deeper corruption. “Transparency is not a privilege but the foundation of democracy.” These salvos tap into a broader undercurrent of frustration in Pakistan, particularly among the young, who have rallied behind PTI’s promises of change. That demographic took center stage in another development on Wednesday, when five jailed PTI stalwarts — Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Dr. Yasmin Rashid, Ejaz Chaudhry, Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed and Omar Sarfraz Cheema — penned a letter from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat prison opposing any hike in the voting age from 18 to 25.
No bill has been introduced, but the idea has swirled in media debates and local newspapers attributed to “well-connected people” pitching it as reform. The leaders’ letter, shared through their lawyer, pushed back hard, tracing Pakistan’s electoral history from the 1970 polls at age 21 to the modern drop to 18, embraced without protest in a world shrunk by instant global connectivity.
With 18 as the benchmark for identity cards and marriage, they asked, what justifies a reversal? “Is this mindset suggestive of fear of the power of the youth and distrust of their conscience?” the letter posed. They recalled a scrapped rule mandating degrees for candidates and hailed the youth’s “insight, perception, decision-power and collective wisdom” as vital forces. “The youth would not let the wheel of history move backwards,” they warned, urging PML-N and PPP to shun any “fear-driven mindset” that muzzles young voters.
Social media has lit up with similar alarms, noting that 18-to-25-year-olds dominate the electorate; disenfranchising them would reshape politics. Pundits add that it would need a constitutional tweak, requiring two-thirds backing in a divided Parliament — no small feat.
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