Daily Times

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has said that her party is open to dialogue with the military establishment ‘within the ambit of the constitution’ and provided that the incumbent PTI government is removed from office and any talks are held in front of the public, not in secret.

“The army is my institution … we will definitely talk but within the ambit of the constitution,” she said in an interview with BBC Urdu. The PML-N leader said she was not against state institutions but stressed that there would be no dialogue in secret. “The incumbent government will have to go if we are to move forward,” she added, and claimed that the establishment had reached out to her close aides but had not contacted her directly.

On a question whether she was ready to hold talks with the current army leadership, whom the PML-N supremo and her father, Nawaz Sharif, has accused of being behind his ouster as prime minister, Maryam said that the possibility of initiation of dialogue from the PDM’s platform could be thought about but after the selected government has been sent home. “The dialogue is with the people now,” she said, adding that the ruling PTI-led government is ‘so nervous’ over the public response that they do not know how to react.

Refusing to comment on a ‘minus-Imran Khan’ strategy, Maryam said it was necessary to remove the PTI government to take the country out of its current crisis. “Whenever the government takes notice of a commodity, its prices shoot up,” she said.

Maryam ruled out any political ‘understanding’ with the PTI, saying that it does not make sense to form a coalition when the incumbent government has been ‘weakened’. In response to another question, Maryam said that the PML-N’s politics was not headed towards a dead-end. Instead, she continued, the ones going towards a dead-end were those who had tried to make this ‘temporary government’. “Wherever we are going, whether it be Gujranwala, Karachi, Quetta or Gilgit Baltistan, only one narrative is echoing: vote ko izzat do (honour the vote) and riyasat ke upar riyasat mat banao (do not make a state above the state).” She added that the public had seen where this was going, which was not towards a dead-end but towards the supremacy of the Constitution and the law.

Maryam said, “The reality of Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, Judge Arshad Malik and Dawn Leaks is in front of you. When you do not extend the tenure of [an army] chief, they start talking about something based on falsehood such as Dawn Leaks.” She emphasised that both the PML-N and the PPP had their own stance and the PML-N’s stance was clarified by Nawaz Sharif.

Regarding the recent inquiry report on the alleged kidnapping of the Sindh inspector general of police in order to force him to sign the arrest warrant for her husband, Captain (r) Safdar, she said people have not gotten their answers. “Rather, more questions had been raised. You are telling the people that some overzealous officers did this under pressure from the public’s reaction. What public reaction was there? Those fake people who registered the case and then ran away, those three, four people are what you call public pressure?” she questioned, adding that according to the constitution, it was not the job of the institutions to give a reply to public reaction but the government’s. “The responsibility of institutions is to fulfill their professional responsibilities, not show overzealousness. Their work is not emotions but fulfilling their constitutional and professional obligations. If someone did in fact do this out of emotions, then it is a huge moment of reflection for the institution and Pakistan.”

However, she said she does not believe that such a thing happened. “I believe some junior officers were sacrificed. It is very sad.”