Top politicians fear 'constitutional breakdown'

ISLAMABAD: The main ruling and opposition parties have expressed fear that a constitutional breakdown could occur as the controversy over reserved seats verdict rages on.

Senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and lawyer Hamid Khan said on Thursday that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led government was pushing the country towards a constitutional breakdown through its unconstitutional actions.

He said this while talking on Geo News' programme "Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath" after a senior ruling party member shared similar concerns on the matter.

Citing the government’s resistance against the top court order allowing the PTI to claim reserved seats in the assemblies, Hamid said the entire constitutional system would fall apart if the Supreme Court's rulings were not enforced.

Earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif expressed fears about a “constitutional meltdown” in the country.

“I don’t have any information [but] this is just my gut feeling that constitutional breakdown is about to happen.. sooner or later [but] it is going to happen,” he said without elaborating further.

However, the PML-N leader clarified that he was not discussing the possibility of martial law being imposed in the country. “There should be a political solution to political problems,” he maintained.

Amid opposition from friends and foes alike, the federal minister admitted that the PML-N government announced the move to ban the PTI in haste. “Yes, you can say that we declared this prematurely and consultation with the allies [in this regard] is mandatory,” he added.

Asif said any decision regarding imposing a ban on the PTI would be taken in line with the consensus among the allies. “We will take this major step after creating broad consensus InshaAllah,” he maintained.

When asked about the perception that the incumbent rulers are playing the role of facilitator in the institutions’ alleged fight against jailed PTI founder Imran Khan, he rejected the perception saying: “This is about Pakistan”.

“Since their [PTI] ouster from power and the attitude they adopted, the PTI has become an existential threat to the country,” the senior PML-N leader said, adding that the embattled party was receiving all-out support from the US “either diplomatic or legislative”.

He also claimed that the PTI hired lobbyists in the US “who have garnered [them] support of different lobbies”.

Separately, speaking in another news channel programme, the defence minister warned “We would go to every extent to save the government”, The News reported.

He said the PML-N government would go to any extent to salvage the current setup.

He said there were whispers, “let October come, and then they will also file an application regarding elections. There are whispers in certain circles for cancelling the elections on a petition. But we will go to any extent to save the government”.