ISLAMABAD: PTI chief Imran Khan Wednesday said they were thinking that on his arrival, the PPP co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari would lead protests but he thought perhaps that things would be better with his joining Parliament.
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Anwar Zaheer Jamali had delivered speeches about elimination of corruption from the society and when the right time came he broke the apex court bench hearing the Panama case.
In an informal interaction with reporters at his Bani Gala residence said, Imran claimed that PanamaLeaks could have been decided within three days, as the case had almost been heard and that was why he was not in favour of formation of the commission on this matter.
In a lighter mood, Imran said: “In the cricketing term, it is called well left”. He was referring to rendering the five-member bench ‘ineffective’ by Justice Jamali after a series of hearings.
He said a nation that never stood up against injustice and tyranny would become sheep ultimately. Imran said corruption was the root-cause of the masses’ problems.
He claimed that had there been no PTI struggle, the nation would have become a slave to the children of the rulers. PTI office-bearers, including Naeemul Haq, Shafqat Mehmood, Dr. Shehzad Wasim, Fawad Chaudhry and others, were also present.
Imran called for giving ample opportunity to the new Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who would be administered oath on December 31. He expressed hope that the new chief justice would be able to restore faith in the judicial system. However, he made it clear that if he could not get justice, he reserved the right to protest as a citizen.
Imran asserted that the issue of PanamaLeaks would have been forgotten if he had not taken to roads for holding the prime minister and his children accountable for their off-shore assets. The PTI chief believed that repeated military interventions had led to paucity of political leadership but he maintained that Nawaz Sharif and other politicians had weakened the state institutions more than the military.
He conceded that his statement on 35 punctures with regard to rigging in 2013 elections was a political one, as they could not go to the courts against it for lack of solid evidence. But, he added, it was true that Najam Sethi was the chief election fixer, who himself said that during the last nine days before 2013 general election decisions were being made from Raiwind. He said rigging was done with the involvement of Nadra.
He was of the view that had the judicial commission on 2013 general election accomplished its task, everything would have become crystal clear. He lamented that the government took no action about the 40 points raised by the commission and none was punished for wrongdoing.
Imran wondered what was the guarantee that the next elections would be transparent. He emphasised that rigging was not the issue of PTI but of Pakistan’s democracy. He added they had before them the whole picture of rigging and afterwards they would go into the electoral process with full preparation to prevent poll rigging.
Imran acknowledged that late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif made their way to politics through the military but insisted there was a huge difference between the two afterwards. He claimed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa led the rest of provinces in terms of human development. The police system in the province has been reformed and the Bank of Khyber purged of politics.
He noted that the local government polls were held down to the village level and funds also released for betterment of people at the grass root level. Asked about the possibility of a grand alliance, Imran said he had no idea of any grand alliance to be formed with regard to the next general election.
Imran believed that the masses firmly believed that PTI was the real opposition party. He defended the decision of not going for the second intra-party election, saying had they got involved in that process PanamaLeaks issue would have been pushed under the carpet. He wondered how could Nawaz Sharif appoint chairman NAB, who himself faced 12 corruption cases.
