Khan’s decision to withdraw his party legislators from all assemblies has yet again brought back his political moves in focus after an apparent setback from the appointment of General Asim Munir as the new army chief that his party had resisted.
By Naveed Naqvi
RAWALPINDI: Former prime minister Imran Khan on Saturday said his party would quit the provincial and national assemblies, instead of marching on Islamabad in a new bid to force the coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to announce snap polls.
Addressing a massive rally of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Rawalpindi, which houses the headquarters of the powerful Army, Khan made his first public appearance since being wounded in a failed assassination bid on his life earlier this month.
The PTI chief suffered multiple bullet injuries in his legs when a gun-wielding man opened fire on his protest convoy near Gujranwala on November 3. The man suspected of firing shots at the rally was detained and later a leaked video showed the purported lone shooter confessing to an attempt on the life of Khan.
However, Khan named three individuals — Prime Minister Sharif, Interior minister Rana Sanaullah and an army official Major-General Faisal Nasser — for the assassination plot and demanded their resignations.
“We will not be part of this system. We have decided to quit all the assemblies and get out of this corrupt system,” Khan told thousands of his cheering supporters, separated by coils of barbed wire and a buffer of police personnel.
Tight security was in place, and a police official told Geo television channel that a total of 10,000 personnel had been deployed for the event, with snipers positioned at various points for Khan’s security.
“I will meet all our chief ministers and our parliamentary party (leaders). And we have decided that we will be exiting all the assemblies,” the PTI chief told the crowd from behind a bulletproof glass.
Khan’s PTI has governments in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as well as in Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. It has lawmakers in the Sindh and Balochistan assemblies also. The party lawmakers had already resigned from the National Assembly but the resignations of all lawmakers were not accepted.
Political commentators said Khan’s decision to withdraw his party legislators from all assemblies has yet again brought back his political moves in focus after an apparent setback from the appointment of General Asim Munir as the new army chief that his party had resisted.
Ousted from the office of prime minister via a parliamentary vote in April, Khan has, since, refused to recognize the coalition government of Prime Minister Sharif and accuses it of conspiring with the military establishment and the US for his removal.
He has demanded snap elections across the country, which Sharif and his coalition government have repeatedly rejected.
Khan, who appeared to be using walking support, also called off the ‘long march’ to Islamabad fearing chaos.
“I have decided not to go to Islamabad because I know there will be havoc and the loss will be to the country,” Khan said. “They (government) cannot deal with a march … they can call as many police as they want, but they cannot stop the hundreds of thousands from entering Islamabad.”
“We could have created a situation like Sri Lanka. I have decided against marching on Islamabad because I don’t want there to be anarchy in the country. I don’t want to cause any harm to this country.”
During his nearly 80-minute address, where he referenced the Sufi mystic Rumi, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the seventh-century Shiite leader Imam Hussain, Khan accused the powerful military establishment of tolerating corruption.
Khan said his government was successful but its only failure was that it could not bring the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the anti-corruption body, under his control to punish the corrupt people.
“It (NAB) was controlled by the establishment. Instead of bringing the corrupt element to the law, the establishment was cutting a deal with them,” he said.
“Those having power don’t mind corruption…That is why they have installed the corrupt elements.”
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