ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday reiterated the stance of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif government that it would not hold early polls, warning ex-premier Imran Khan that he would be unsuccessful in putting pressure on the government or the military establishment to help get an election date.
Khan, who was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April this year, has blamed the United States, the military, and his political rivals, now in power, for conspiring to remove him from office. All three deny the charge.
Since his ouster, Khan has also been staging rallies across the country to pressure the government into announcing early elections. Recently, Khan has threatened to dissolve the legislative assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, the two provinces where his PTI party is in government with coalition partners.
Khan hopes this might force early general elections as the government would have to then hold by-polls on over 550 seats. The dissolution of the two provincial parliaments could thus trigger a constitutional crisis in the South Asian nation, which is already facing political and economic instability.
“If he has already decided to dissolve the assemblies, then he should go ahead and do so instead of announcing new dates every now and then,” Sanaullah said in an interview to a local news channel.
“The government, after weighing all the pros and cons of the situation, has decided that if the assemblies are dissolved, then an election will be held in that particular assembly. Meanwhile, we will conduct by-elections on the seats that will be left vacant if PTI members tender their resignations.”
Sanaullah added that neither the military establishment nor the government would be pressurised into announcing early elections.
“The establishment will not be pressurized by Khan’s blackmailing tactics and threats, and they will definitely not help him get an election date, no matter what he does,” Sanaullah added.
There have been widespread reports in recent days that Khan has proposed to talk to the government on snap polls, an offer that is seen as a step back by the ex-premier, who has previously been refusing to negotiate with the coalition government, which contains former opposition parties he has said comprise a corrupt political elite. The parties reject that allegation.
Khan rode to power after winning a general election in 2018, which his opponents say he secured through a rigged ballot engineered by the country’s powerful military, a charge both Khan and the army deny.
