ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s anti-government protesters on Thursday blocked major roads and highways in different parts of the country in a bid to force Prime Minister Imran Khan to resign, demanding fresh elections in the country.
The demonstrators led by opposition leader and Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, launched street agitation as part of their “Plan B” to topple the government after failing to push Khan out through a two-week long protest sit-in in Islamabad.
“This protest will continue not for a day but for a month if our leadership instructs,” said JUI-F secretary general, Maulana Nasir Mehmood, while addressing a group of protesters who blocked the country’s main Karakoram Highway — an important trade route between Pakistan and China that also connects the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province with its picturesque northern areas.
The JUI-F protesters also blocked other key routes in KP and a main connecting Sindh and Balochistan provinces.
The party’s Balochistan chapter further announced to block the highway connecting Pakistan to neighboring Iran.
Firebrand religious cleric, Rahman, on Wednesday announced to call off his two-week long anti-government sit-in in Islamabad and told his party workers to spread their protest to other parts of the country.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators reached Islamabad on October 31 where they camped for about two weeks, demanding the prime minister’s resignation and fresh polls in the country over the allegations of electoral fraud last year and mismanagement of Pakistan’s economy. The government denies both charges.
Rehman is a veteran politician who enjoys support in religious circles across the country and has a representation in the country’s parliament. As for the closure of the roads, his party has yet to share a detailed plan as to when and where a road would be closed and how long would the new phase of the protest continue.
The JUI-F and other opposition parties have been trying to capitalize on the anger and frustration of the masses against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration that came to power last year, promising ten million new jobs for the youth, five million low-cost houses and economic reforms to benefit the middle class.
But the economy has nosedived with double-digit inflation and rampant unemployment due to the closure of industry, as the government signed a $6 billion bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stave off a balance-of-payments crisis.
“Prime Minister Imran Khan has stabilized the deteriorating economy … and Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s ‘Plan B’ will fail like his ‘Plan A,’” Firdous Ashiq Awan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting, told media.
Anti-government protesters block roads in Pakistan in fresh wave of agitation
Anti-government protesters block roads in Pakistan in fresh wave of agitation
- Firebrand cleric leading the protests called for cross-country agitation
- Prime Minister Imran Khan refused to step down as thousands of protesters camped in Islamabad for two weeks
Pakistani politicians urge dialogue with Imran Khan’s party as PM offers talks
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities and media restrictions, form committee for negotiations
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently invited the PTI for talks.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month invited the PTI for talks during a meeting of the federal cabinet, saying harmony among political forces was essential for the country’s progress.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
The NDC urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to initiate talks with the opposition. It said after the government forms its team, the NDC will announce the names of the opposition negotiating team after holding consultations with its jailed members.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit proposed six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
The joint communique called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
