Reiterating concerns over the prevailing political atmosphere, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Monday said the emergence of sectarian-based parties would be harmful to Pakistan's political landscape.
“I think if Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam -- Fazl (JUI-F) or Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) wins elections, it will be very unfortunate for Pakistan," he said while speaking to reporters in Faisalabad. He was accompanied by State Minister for Information Farrukh Habib.
"It means that Pakistan is heading towards politics of sectarianism… it's evident that such [type of ] politics is dangerous for any country,” he told
In an apparent reference to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Fawad urged the country's prominent political parties to take stock of the emerging situation.
“I think failure or fall of big parties is not in the interest of Pakistan because it will give space to parties based on sectarian politics. And, Pakistan will suffer a lot in future if they emerge,” the information minister added.
Sectarian-based parties should not be supported and discouraged, he emphasised.
Fawad had expressed similar views for the JUI-F and the TLP after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) loss in the Khyder Pakhtunkhwa Local Government elections in December. The minister in a press conference on December 21 said that the rise of "extremist parties" like JUI-F and TLP in the country were signs that the country was regressing.
He also urged an end to partisanship on part of political parties, while calling for renewed determination to resolve the challenges facing the country.
“When there is a fight in parliament or opposition breaks the decorum of the House, it diminishes the respect of politics [and politicians] in the eye of the common man,” he said, adding that the government would not be blackmailed by the Opposition’s tactics of getting reflief in ongoing corruption cases.
“We should not give the impressions that [the parliament] is a battlefield.”
He added that even those who voted for the PTI weren't satisfied with the process of accountability despite the efforts of the ruling government.
“We are being criticised for not bringing back the wealth that was laundered abroad,” he said. “The common man is not satisfied with this process of accountability since the prime suspects [in graft cases] are outside the country.”
In such a situation, he added, the opposition’s demand to provide relief in accountability cases was “inappropriate.”
Talking about electoral reforms, he said that the government and the opposition have agreed to two thirds of the changes, while reiterating the call for talks to sort out the remaining one-third of issues in electoral reforms that stay unresolved.
