PML-N drops demand for early polls
ISLAMABAD — The Pakistan Muslim League-n of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif appears to have had second thoughts about its demand for an early general election in view of ground realities.
Riding high on anti-pakistan People’s Party — the ruling party of President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani — sentiment in the country, the PML-N was optimistic in the second half of last year that it would be able to force the government to call early elections.
Its leaders even talked about resigning from assemblies and launched an anti Zardari campaign to topple the government.
But of late
they seem
to have realised that the situation on the ground requires that they should wait for some time and let elections be held on time.
Incomplete electoral rolls, appointment of a new chief election commissioner through consultations among all parties and the fact that the PPP government looks set to complete its ve-year term with the support of its coalition partners, are some of the ground realities which have forced PML-N leaders to change tack.
As a result, the leadership has decided to keep its antigovernment campaign intact, but its focus will now be more on reaching out to people and listening to their problems than just raising the anti Zard- ari slogan, an of ce-bearer of the party said.
However, he said, the leaders would keep talking about PPP government’s ‘dismal performance’ and its ‘anti-judiciary stance’ during rallies to be held in southern Punjab.
The issue of en bloc resignation from assemblies to force early elections was taken up at the party’s Central Executive Committee meeting in Islamabad on January 12, but Sharif rejected it and asked party lawmakers to focus attention on their constituencies.
He said that even though the PPP government looked set to complete its ve-year term, the PML-N would not become part of any move aimed at top- pling the government because it would be termed unconstitutional.
Probably because of this, the party of cial said, the PML-N chief, in spite of being one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court seeking a thorough investigation of the memo affair, quietly moved aside when some quarters started raising ngers at the party and accused it of being hand in glove with the military establishment, he said.
“The issue of incomplete voter lists is not something which the party can ignore, and the party has also been demanding the appointment of an independent election commissioner. And these will take time,” he said. — Internews