LAHORE: Two major Pakistani opposition political parties said on Monday they would hold a joint conference after the Eid Al-Adha holiday to kickstart a campaign to oust the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The decision was taken at a meeting of senior leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) at Bilawal House in Lahore.
“The leadership of the two major opposition parties, PPP, PML-N, agreed on the point that it is necessary to get rid of the Imran-led government,” PMLN leader Ahsan Iqbal told media after the meeting.
“The two parties are unanimous on toppling the PTI [ruling party] government and a strategy will be finalized at the multi parties’ conference to be held after Eidul Adha,” senior PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira said. “A joint opposition coordination committee will be formed that will have representatives from all opposition parties.”
A cricket legend and firebrand nationalist who is hero-worshipped by supporters, PM Khan swept to power in 2018 on a populist platform vowing to root out corruption among a venal elite and lift people out of poverty.
But he inherited control of a volatile nation facing mounting problems at home and abroad, including a growing economic crisis and a fracture with historic ally the United States and fraught ties with neighbor Afghanistan and nuclear-armed rival India.
Leaders from the PPP and PMLN said they had agreed that the Khan government had failed to deliver on its promises to the masses. An anti-graft crusade promoted Khan by has led to swathes of arrests of politicians, which opponents have called ‘political victimization.’
The PPP and the PMLN have both ruled Pakistani multiple times since its inception in 1947 while Khan’s PTI won its first election two years ago.
“They [PPP and PMLN] have ruled the country for several decades but did nothing for the people,” PTI leader and Punjab information minister Fayazul Hasan Chohan told Arab News. “The two parties who have looted the country ruthlessly are making such efforts to save themselves from accountability.”
