All stakeholders should sit together to decide the future, PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has reiterated as he called for changing the course to develop the country.
“I name six people: Mian Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Asif Ali Zardari, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief justice of Pakistan, and army chief,” he said in an interview with Spot Light with Munizae Jahangir that was aired on Aaj News on Tuesday. “They influence the politics of the country.”
In the past, Abbasi has called for such a demand while speaking about the lingering issues of the country and the need for coming on one page to find solutions to the problems.
Abbasi, a former prime minister, recently met with Nawaz Sharif amid reports that he was in London to bid farewell to the PML-N supremo. But he has not joined any new political party which many thought after two of his colleagues, Miftah Ismail and Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, hinted at in TV interviews.
When asked whether the army chief of CJP would violate the oath of office when they would interfere in politics, he asked if was it written in the Constitution that they cannot sit for the country’s matters.
When pressed, Abbasi explained that discussions could be held despite taking the oath of office as “whatever the army and the judiciary do have an impact on the country’s politics”.
He reiterated that everybody has to sit together to decide how the country has to move forward. He described the prevailing situation as an “unusual” situation.
“Whether they [army and judiciary] have a role or not in the Constitution, they have an impact in politics. Should we close our eyes?” Abbasi said and asked about the apparent roles of the army and judiciary in politics.
He added that it was a collective failure of the system and it was not possible for any single person to fix it and find a way.
While responding to a query, the PML-N leader was of the view that the army would step back in response to a space demanded by the politicians.
He rebuffed the impression that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were the guarantors whenever any big leader came to Pakistan through the Gulf states.
Abbasi said that he welcomed the Faizabad sit-in agreement with the protesters and advised the-then Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal to not sign it.
He revealed that the-then Law Minister Zahid Hamid had already resigned from his post and said he sacrificed a lot.
To a query, the PML-N leader said that Iqbal would be clear on the demand set by the protesters for having the signatures of the people on the document. He called for establishing a Truth Commission to ascertain who was behind the Faizabad sit-in.
