Only solution is fresh mandate: Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi Thursday said that in his opinion as a citizen and not as a PTI worker, the only solution to the situation was fresh mandate letting people decide who should form future government.

Talking to the media outside the Supreme Court, Shah Mahmood Qureshi noted that the opposition was claiming that the Deputy Speaker had violated the Constitution while “our opinion is different from theirs as we think that the Speaker has full authority to give rulings.”

He explained, “Our position is that Article 69 protects the rulings of the Speaker and the Speaker has not violated the constitution. We have taken oath, we cannot violate the constitution as the Deputy Speaker gave ruling when the new situation came up.”

He said that the main point at the moment was the ruling of the Deputy Speaker. “Our analysis is that Article 69 is very clear. The spirit of Article 69 is that the affairs of Parliament should remain in Parliament. And the Speaker's ruling is final. In the constitution, every member of the state has his own responsibility.”

Qureshi said, “The communication regarding change of government which we were talking about, was discussed in the National Security Committee and some people in the opposition called this communication fake, whereas some important decisions were taken after the meeting of the committee and one was to send demarche and the other was to convene a meeting of the Parliamentary Security Committee. The opposition was invited to the Parliamentary Security Committee but it stayed away from it.”