Journalist Mazhar Abbas has stressed the need to hold free and fair elections, in which all political parties can participate to bring Pakistan out of the political crisis.

“The government has failed to ensure that it is taking measures for a political solution to the current crisis,” he said at Asma Shirazi’s show Faisla Aap Ka on Tuesday.

He was of the view that all the political parties need to agree on a national policy to solve the economic issues of the country.

Journalist Zahid Hussain, who was among the three panelists on the show, said that continuity in the political process was important for the betterment of the country. He advised that all parties should sit together and agree on a solution to the current crisis and then go for elections.

He added that PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s meeting with former party member Fawad Chaudhry in current times was raising questions.

PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi was released from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail almost after a month on Tuesday. However, the senior politician refused to take questions and said that he will talk to reporters in detail after meeting party chief Imran Khan.

“It is pertinent to mention that despite saying he is part of the PTI, Qureshi did not mention hundreds of arrested party’s workers, which shows a change of strategy,” Hussain said, “Qureshi is very different from the PTI’s chief who speaks in a very aggressive tone even against the establishment. Qureshi will not leave PTI.”

On the future of PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s politics, Hussain said that it was not possible to minus a leader from the political landscape.

“The political history of Pakistan shows that every political leader has been the target of the minus-one formula. You can take political leaders out of the electoral politics but not from the political scene,” he added.

According to journalist Nasim Zehra, the PTI was likely to continue to participate in the country’s politics. “This is evident from the release of Qureshi, who did a press conference and was not rearrested,” she said.

“Qureshi never took a radical position against anyone including the establishment,” Zehra said, adding that the former foreign minister has significantly contributed to PTI’s politics.

“After Khan, he is the only person who has created credibility of himself in the PTI vote bank,” she added.

To a question about a likely ban on the PTI and its chief’s disqualification, all three panelists were of the view that the ban on the PTI was “unlikely”.

Journalist Abbas said that despite being divided, the PTI was likely to remain a major stakeholder in the country’s politics due to its huge vote bank. “Qureshi is among the leaders who would want the PTI to remain a mainstream party but a transformed one,” he said.

“But there is a huge faction in the PTI which do not accept anyone other than Imran Khan as their party leader.”