Daily Times

The PML-N and PPP will convene a session of the opposition Rehbar Committee today to finalise a date for the proposed all-parties conference, which will chalk out a strategy to oust the sitting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government.

This announcement was made at a joint press conference on Wednesday held by both the parties following talks between the party leaders.

PPP leaders Naveed Qamar and Farhatullah Babar and PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal and Marriyum Aurangzeb addressed a joint press conference after a meeting between delegations of both parties following Shehbaz Sharif’s arrival in Karachi. The PML-N president, along with his party leaders, met PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and former president Asif Ali Zardari. Leaders of both the parties reiterated their commitment to using all ‘democratic and constitutional ways’ available to send the government packing.

“In the meeting, the opposition parties discussed routine political matters and decided to participate in a Rehbar Committee’s meeting on Thursday,” PML-N stalwart Ahsan Iqbal told the briefing. He said the opposition will respond to the incumbent government’s political, economic, and governance failures by strengthening the collaboration between parties. “The time has now come to convene an all parties conference,” he said. “[The opposition] will bring forward all constitutional and legal options to send this government back home and save the country from disaster,” he added.

Iqbal said that the PTI-led government’s ‘incompetence’ has become a disaster for the nation as the country’s economy has plunged, hatred is being spread, and Pakistan’s foreign policy is such that Kashmiris have been looking to us this past year but we have failed to do anything for them. “These are some of the issues that we think are crucial,” the PML-N leader said. “After the Rehbar Committee’s meeting, an all parties conference will be called,” he said, adding that the committee will layout the plan of action of the opposition.

Iqbal said that both parties have agreed to ‘struggle for the supremacy of the constitution, independent courts and free media’. “If [we are to] run this country and make it successful, it is only possible if we blindly follow the 1973 Constitution that is in line with the vision of Quaid-i-Azam,” he said.

Addressing the differences between the opposition and government over proposed laws pertaining to money laundering, terror financing, etc, Iqbal said that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had thanked Sharif in a letter after similar bills were passed by both houses earlier. “But the opposition had blocked the passage of newly introduced bills because the government wanted to pass a ‘black law’ under the garb of complying with the Financial Action Task Force requirements,” he maintained.

PPP’s Babar seconded Iqbal’s statement and alleged that through the new law, the government wanted to ‘legalise’ people being picked up without charges. He said that the government’s accountability process was one-sided and that no one affiliated with the ruling party was being held accountable or questioned.

Later, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif paid a visit to different areas of Karachi, including Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Malir, where he met families of victims whose lives were and offered his condolences over the difficulties endured by the citizens.