The interim set up in the federal government would not hold elections till 2024, similar to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces where the caretaker governments were still ruling despite the completion of their tenure, analyst Hamid Mir has claimed.
“Certain things are not explained in the Constitution. We have seen what the provincial interim government did to the courts’ orders of holding the elections within three months,” he said on Aaj News show Rubaroo on Saturday. “The same is likely for the upcoming interim setup in the centre.”
He added: “If the federal government’s term ends in August and a caretaker government comes to the Centre. Instead of holding elections in three months, [if] it starts doing something else and says now we will continue till 2024 then you cannot stop it under the Constitution. But I think it is wrong and I think this wrong is going to happen,” Mir said.
He called for holding elections on time, saying that he saw the interim set-ups in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as “unconstitutional”. Journalists should not be part of any caretaker setup, the analyst added.
“I believe it is not journalists’ place to be part of a caretaker setup. If you want to participate in politics, do it by contesting elections,” he said.
To a question regarding PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s statements that they would not leave the ruling alliance, Mir said that it seemed that both the leaders felt the need to assure the PML-N and “someone” that they would not create hurdles for PML-N.
Former finance minister Miftah Ismail and PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also came under discussion during the show as Mir said that he does not see any political role of Abbasi in the future.
He believed Supreme Court judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa was not a partisan and a “man of integrity”.
“If you read the judgment of the Faizabad sit-in case, Justice Faez Isa had asked two institutions, ISI and ISPR, to stop interfering in politics, on which [former army chief] General Qamar Javed Bajwa was very angry,” Mir said.
“Bajwa said to me that Justice Faez Isa is not a good judge, and a reference should be made against him,” he said, “the PTI chairman told me that he does not have time to file a reference and two days later, he filed a reference.”
