ISLAMABAD: In his farewell speech to Pakistan’s parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised to cooperate with any political party that wins the upcoming general elections and forms its government at the center.
Sharif was addressing members of Pakistan’s lower house of the parliament, the National Assembly, in a farewell session. The Pakistani prime minister has announced he would send a summary for the dissolution of the National Assembly to the president on Wednesday, who has to dissolve parliament within 48 hours after which it will automatically stand dissolved. After the government’s term expires, the president is bound to appoint a caretaker prime minister in consultation with the outgoing prime minister and opposition leader. The same procedure is followed by governors in the provinces.
Sharif’s 16-month tenure as prime minister was marked by political chaos, confrontation, and economic uncertainty. At the heart of Pakistan’s political crisis is former prime minister Imran Khan, who was arrested after his conviction on graft charges by a local Islamabad court on Saturday, and subsequently disqualified by Pakistan’s election regulator on Tuesday for a period of five years.
“I will send a proposal to the president tonight for dissolution of the assembly,” Sharif told fellow lawmakers at the National Assembly, adding that he would meet Leader of the Opposition Raja Riaz tomorrow, Thursday, to discuss the candidates for the interim prime minister.
“Tomorrow will be our first meeting,” the premier said. “As per the constitution, we will have three days to reach a decision [on the caretaker prime minister's appointment].”
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a group photo with the members of the National Assembly in Islamabad, Pakistan August 9, 2023.
The prime minister termed the 16-month-long tenure as the country’s chief executive “the most difficult test of my life.”
“I had never seen such a hard test in my 38-year political career,” he said. “Whoever comes into power, we will cooperate with them.”
He denounced the violent protests that followed Khan’s brief arrest on May 9 which saw government buildings and military installations attacked in various parts of the country.
“It was a rebellion against the army, the state, and [army chief] General Asim Munir,” Sharif said.
However, without taking Khan’s name, Sharif said one should not celebrate if a leader is disqualified from politics.
“And if some have distributed sweets [to celebrate the verdict], it is not right. It is not a good tradition,” he added.
He accused the previous government of incompetence, saying that its economic policies put Pakistan through immense burdens which his government had to bear.
“Under very difficult circumstances, all the members of the coalition government battled the challenges together, including the floods of 2022 which wreaked havoc in Sindh, Balochistan, and KP,” the Pakistani prime minister said.
The premier said the previous government had violated the IMF conditions, damaging Pakistan's dignity and integrity. “The previous government damaged relations with friendly countries that resulted in an increase in our difficulties,” he said.
After the parliament stands dissolved on Wednesday night, elections would be due by November. But the government’s move last week to approve the results of a fresh digital census has thrown polls into uncertainty, as the Election Commission is now bound under the constitution to draw new constituency boundaries as per the results of the latest population count. That process could take up to six months and would mean polling day is pushed back by months.
Pakistan’s election regulator has already said it cannot hold general elections on the basis of the new population count within the stipulated three-month deadline if it has to finalize fresh delimitations of constituencies.
Political analysts said the National Assembly failed to arrest inflation, economic downfall and undertake legislative and economic reforms to provide relief to the masses.
“This assembly proved to be just a pawn in the hands of some of the powerful and failed to deliver to the public,” Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a senior political analyst, told Arab News. “Just completing a five-year constitutional term doesn’t mean anything to the public.”
Rais said the assembly completed its term without a "vibrant opposition" and violated numerous parliamentary and political traditions by tightening the noose against political opponents. “This assembly has contributed almost zero in strengthening the democratic norms and democracy in the country,” he said.
Adnan Rehmat, a political analyst, said the outgoing assembly is the first one in Pakistan's history where a prime minister was ousted through a parliamentary vote, adding that it “helped strengthen the democratic process within the parliament.”
He, however, said Sharif’s government failed to introduce much-touted economic reforms during its tenure while the assembly could not deliver to the public's expectations.
“This assembly was a mixed bag of expectations, failures, and ground realities in our countries to run an effective government,” he added.
