ISLAMABAD: The coalition government will complete its tenure and elections will be held as per schedule in August next year, said the top leader of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) alliance, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, while addressing a news conference in the federal capital on Thursday.
The country’s former premier Imran Khan has been demanding the coalition government to hold early elections since he was ousted from power in a no-confidence vote in April.
Prime Minister Shehbaz’s government has been under pressure to call early elections after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party swept the recent by-elections in Punjab and helped its ally Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) to form the government in the country’s most populous province.
The PDM leadership held a meeting to discuss the prevailing political situation in Pakistan and determine the future course of the government on Thursday.
“In today’s meeting, it was made clear that elections will be held on schedule and the government will complete its term,” Rahman said.
He maintained it was difficult to “clean the mess created by Imran Khan in three-and-a-half years,” but added the coalition government would rise to the occasion.
Rahman said the PDM would continue its meetings over the next couple of days in which its component parties would discuss Pakistan’s political situation and decide their future strategy.
The PDM leader called upon the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to “immediately announce the verdict of the foreign funding case against the PTI.”
The case has been pending since November 2014, after it was filed by a PTI founding member, Akbar S. Babar, who alleged financial irregularities in PTI funding from Pakistan and abroad.
Last month, the ECP announced it had reserved its judgment in the case.
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Sharif lashed out at the judiciary during the same press conference, accusing it of discriminating against her party while adjudicating a case related to the election of Punjab chief minister.
A three-member bench, headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, had decided the case in favor of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, Khan’s ally in the province, saying he had been wrongfully denied victory in last week’s vote during the chief minister’s election.
The deputy speaker, overseeing the contest, had invalidated 10 votes in Elahi’s favor on grounds that they were cast against the party line. Sharif reiterated it was the judiciary’s job to interpret the constitution, not legislate.
