Lagatar24 Desk
Islamabad, May 24: Pakistan government, led by Shehbaz Sharif, has rejected former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) calls for immediate elections.
According to a report in Pakistan’s Express Tribune citing sources, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) indicated elections would be held only in August 2023, after the government’s term ends.
According to the Tribune, allies of the ruling PML-N argued that holding early elections is not viable because the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has already established dates for the delimitation process to be finished by August.
According to the report, Sharif will convene a meeting of the coalition government on Wednesday to deliberate on a strategy for the next general election. The declaration comes in response to Imran Khan’s ongoing call for new national elections following his and his PTI party’s stunning removal from power last month.
On Wednesday, the PTI chief is slated to lead a protest march to Islamabad’s capital to oppose the Shehbaz Sharif government and demand that the National Assembly be dissolved. After his party’s core committee meeting in Peshawar, Khan urged supporters to ‘join the protest in huge numbers.’ On the Srinagar highway, he would encounter demonstrators.
However, according to Pakistani media, the authorities will not allow Imran Khan to hold a rally there. According to reports, the PTI would be given an open field instead.
According to the Express Tribune, Pakistani interior minister Rana Sanaullah advised Khan against causing a law-and-order problem, saying that ‘justice will take its course if he attempts to be the gravedigger of democracy during the march.’
