PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has called for political stability, to be achieved through dialogue or force, in an address on videolink on the occasion of the PPP founding’s 57th anniversary on Saturday, his call was a comment on the recently ended PTI attempt to hold a sit-in in Islamabad, which was dispersed by force in the wee hours of Wednesday. He would naturally have to support the line of the government, which he supports, but supporting it from outside gives him a degree of freedom to criticize the government. However, he clearly came out on the side of the government. As a result, the PTI has perhaps only Maulana Fazlur Rehman on the government side to support it.
The ruling PML(N) has already made it obvious that it wants KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur’s government removed and replaced by Governor’s rule, and the PTI banned. It had let it be known that it was only the need to get its allies to agree that stopped it. Mr Bhutto Zardari is holding out what may indeed be ‘last call’ for dialogue, as force would then be the alternative. Mr Bhutto Zardari also expressed the need for a second National Action Plan (NAP) to handle the situation. This was a clear reference towards the real reason why the KP government might be dismissed: the sectarian violence in Kurram, the ex-FATA district, where over 100 people have been killed in the ongoing violence. Meanwhile, PTI Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said, while talking to the press after a court appearance in Lahore, that banning the PTI or sacking the KP government would be huge mistakes.
Though the path of force remains, it should be left as the prerogative of the state. The path of negotiation is the political one. The PML(N) has never refused to talk with anyone. Mr Qureshi cannot be considered to have made a talks offer, but he did ask that he be allowed to meet PTI founder Imran Khan so as to argue his view that a dialogue for national reconciliation needed to be held. Mr Khan should realize that even wars end with a dialogue: for what are surrender negotiations but a dialogue? His refusal to talk except on his own terms, with his main demands already accepted, has brought about the present situation, where the PTI is trying to recover from its biggest setback since 9 May 2023.
