ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Information Minister Murtaza Solangi on Tuesday met a close aide of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in a meeting that was widely reported as a major political development and the first formal contact between the caretaker administration and the party of the beleaguered ex-premier.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has faced a widening crackdown since May 9, when his supporters damaged government and military properties in nationwide street protests that the former PM and top leaders of his party are accused of masterminding. Thousands of Khan’s followers were arrested after the protests and dozens of members of his party, including some of his closest and oldest aides, deserted him.
Khan, who is serving a three-year jail sentence in a graft case, says a slew of legal cases against him are fabricated and politically motivated and that his associates are being forced out of the PTI under duress from the military in a maneuver to dismantle his party before elections scheduled early next year. The army denies this.
Khan and the PTI have also repeatedly raised concern that the party will be denied a “level-playing field” in the next general elections, due in January.
“Conducting transparent elections in the country, ensuring equal opportunities to participate in the elections for political parties, evolving greater national consensus and other matters of mutual interest came under discussion during the meeting,” the PTI said in a statement after the meeting between Solangi and PTI leader Shafqat Mahmood, who served as Khan’s education minister.
The PTI said the meeting at Mahmood’s residence in Lahore was held at the “request of Solangi.”
Khan has been embroiled in a tussle with the military since he was removed from power last year in a parliamentary vote which he says was orchestrated by the country’s top generals, his political opponents and Washington. All three deny the accusations.
The PTI has repeatedly called on the election commission to ensure free and fair elections and allow the party a fair chance to contest. It has also called for action against a crackdown against the party and the arrests and “enforced disappearances” of its supporters and party members as an “orchestrated pre-poll rigging campaign.”
A caretaker government led by PM Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar took over in August after the end of the term of the administration of Premier Shehbaz Sharif.
Under Pakistan’s constitution, a neutral caretaker government oversees national elections, which must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the parliament’s lower house — which in this instance meant early November, though polls will most likely be held in January as the election commission has to redraw new constituency boundaries after the results of a fresh census earlier this year showed Pakistan’s population had significantly increased.
