ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will hold a fresh round of talks on forming the next government today, Monday, as both sides aim to break the country’s political impasse following indecisive elections of Feb. 8, state-run media said.
Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari-led PPP held their fourth round of talks on Sunday, but have not been able to chalk out a clear plan for a coalition government.
Both parties set up coordination committees after the Feb. 8 elections in which the PML-N emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly with 75 seats, while the PPP secured the second spot with 54 seats. Both are rivals of ex-PM Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, whose backed independent candidates secured the highest number of seats.
Discussions between the two political parties, who are traditional rivals but have joined forces to avert a common threat, the PTI, have been revolving around appointments to important posts in the new administration. The PPP and PML-N are also convincing smaller parties to join the coalition in return for positions in the cabinet.
“The coordination committees of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party will hold the 5th round of talks on government formation in Islamabad today (Monday),” the state-run Radio Pakistan said.
The PML-N was represented by its senior leadership including Senator Ishaq Dar, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Senator Azam Nazir Tarar, and Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan in Sunday’s talks. The PPP was represented by former Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Saeed Ghani, Sardar Bahadur Khan Sehar and Nadeem Afzal Chan.
The PPP has backed Shehbaz Sharif, the younger brother of ex-PM Sharif who too has served as the prime minister, as the candidate for PM’s office. The Bhutto-led party, however, has not yet committed to joining the coalition and has indicated it would support a minority government from the outside.
But political uncertainty persists in the country as independent candidates, backed by Khan’s PTI, formed the largest group in parliament. They, however, cannot form a government on their own as they ran as individuals and not a party.
Khan, who has been in jail since August, was barred from running in the election. His PTI remains at loggerheads with the country’s powerful military and accuses it of sidelining the party and its chief. The military denies meddling in politics.
The national polls were marred by a mobile service shutdown and unusually delayed results, leading to accusations that the vote was rigged and drawing concern from rights groups and foreign governments. Several political parties and candidates have held protests against the results since Feb. 8 and Khan’s PTI has challenged many of them in court.
The Pakistani caretaker government says the measures were taken as the run-up to elections was bloodied by attacks on rallies, election offices and candidates. Twenty-eight people were killed in a number of attacks in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces bordering Afghanistan on the eve of elections and at least 16 people perished in attacks on the polling day itself.
Khan’s party drew thousands of people in countrywide protests on Saturday over allegations that the polls were rigged. Last week, a senior Rawalpindi bureaucrat claimed he had rigged polls in multiple national and provincial constituencies, accusing the country’s top election officer and its top judge of being involved in the malpractice.
Both Pakistan’s chief justice and the chief election commissioner have strongly rejected his allegations. Khan’s party has clarified it is not seeking annulment of the polls but wants its “stolen” mandate back.
