ISLAMABAD: Days after Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) announced to take part in the upcoming Senate elections, senior party leader Ahsan Iqbal said that the party will do so to restrain the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government from securing a supermajority in the House.
Speaking to media outside an accountability court in Islamabad, the former minister said that the PML-N does not believe in “leaving the field open for the PTI”.
He observed that if the PML-N did not contest elections, the government will obtain a two-thirds majority and “change the face of the Constitution.”
“[PML-N] will take part in Senate elections and will stop the PTI from obtaining a two-thirds majority,” he said, claiming that if the PTI managed to secure the majority, it may do away with the 18th Amendment and impose a presidential system on the country.
“They [PTI] can take the country towards a presidential system,” he claimed. “We will take part in the Senate [elections] as the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) central point is to stop the government’s conspiracies.”
He said that the PDM had obtained success in its endeavours against the government, alleging the prime minister’s panicked state was proof of their success.
Iqbal warned a “decisive long march” to Islamabad from the PDM platform will sweep away the government when the time comes.
“Every minister of the PTI is involved in the worse form of corruption,” he said. “Be it the sugar, wheat, or utility store corruption. Each minister, on the one hand, talks about honesty and on the other hand, is busy looting the country.”
The former minister said that NAB was a “one-eyed body”, adding that it was looking the other way when it came to the ruling party’s corruption.
Iqbal rejected a minister’s claim of him embezzling Rs70 billion from China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, adding that whatever money that contractors had received from Chinese companies, was paid directly to the contractors.
“It is due to these irresponsible statements that the CPEC has become controversial around the world,” he said.
Iqbal said that the PTI government had taken more loans so far than the five years of PML-N government, adding that the incumbent government still had not executed any development projects.
