ISLAMABAD: One of the leading religio-political parties in the country, Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI-F) said Thursday it would begin its anti-government movement on October 27 after staging protest demonstrations across Pakistan to express solidarity with the people of Indian-administered Kashmir.
“The incumbent government is a product of fake elections and fake results,” JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman claimed while addressing a news conference in Islamabad along with his senior party members.
He added that all opposition parties had rejected the results of last year’s general elections and called for fresh polls.
“We will send this government packing [by launching our movement],” Rehman said.
The announcement was made after the party’s Central Executive Committee meeting to discuss if it should delay the protest march against the government for a month, as suggested by the leadership of two other opposition parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
The opposition factions had unanimously agreed to protest against the government from a single platform while attending an all-parties conference in June this year.
“This will be an Azadi [freedom] march,” Rehman told the media. “People in caravans from all over the country will join us, as we begin our journey to Islamabad.”
The JUI-F party has a large network of religious seminaries across the country and its students constitute its power base.
Rehman has been holding public rallies across the country since last year to mobilize his voters and galvanize other segments of society to bring down the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
“We will gather at D-Chowk [in front of the Parliament House],” he said. “We are not ones to disperse easily.”
JUI-F to launch anti-government protest on October 27
JUI-F to launch anti-government protest on October 27
- Says all opposition factions rejected last year’s general elections, demanded new polls
- Promises to send the government packing by launching its movement
Rating firm S&P says it won’t rush Iran war downgrades, sees risks for countries like Pakistan
- Agency says it is monitoring indebted energy importers as higher oil prices strain finances
- Gulf economies seen better placed to weather shock, though Bahrain flagged as vulnerable
LONDON: S&P Global said it would not make any knee-jerk sovereign rating cuts following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but warned on Thursday that soaring oil and gas prices were putting a number of already cash-strapped countries at risk.
The firm’s top analysts said in a webinar that the conflict, which has involved US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iranian strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, was now moving from a low- to moderate-risk scenario.
Most Gulf countries had enough fiscal buffers, however, to weather the crisis for a while, with more lowly rated Bahrain the only clear exception.
Qatar’s banking sector could also struggle if there were significant deposit outflows in reaction to the conflict, although there was no evidence of such strains at the moment, they said.
“We don’t want to jump the gun and just say things are bad,” S&P’s head global sovereign analyst, Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, said.
The longer the crisis was prolonged, though, “the more difficult it is going to be,” he added.
Sifon-Arevalo said Asia was the second-most exposed region, due to many of its countries being significant Gulf oil and gas importers.
India, Thailand and Indonesia have relatively lower reserves of oil, while the region also had already heavily indebted countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka whose finances would be further hurt by rising energy prices.
“We are closely monitoring these (countries) to see how the credit stories evolve,” Sifon-Arevalo said.
