Screengrab of Chaudhry Fawad Hussain’s press conference
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday reiterated its demand for the ruling coalition to announce early general elections, with party leader Chaudhry Fawad Hussain saying it will announce, within 48 hours, the date for its next “massive” rally in Islamabad.
Addressing a press conference, Fawad said the PTI would issue an “ultimatum” to the incumbent government to announce dates for the next general elections during the rally. “We cannot give more than one [more] month to this government,” he said. “We will also give them a date to dissolve the assemblies during the jalsa, and if the government still doesn’t announce a date for the election, then it should brace itself for our next strike,” he added.
The PTI leader stressed that his party did not trust any decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and did not believe in the existing process of elections either. He said the chief election commissioner and some other members of the ECP should resign as they were not trustworthy. “The election commission should have waited till Aug. 16 to schedule the by-elections,” he said of the polls on nine vacant seats of the National Assembly that ousted prime minister Imran Khan has vowed to personally contest.
Earlier on Friday, the ECP issued two notices to Khan, summoning him for hearings in two references—on Aug. 23 in reference to the prohibited funding case and on Aug. 18 in reference to his disqualification on the demand of the leadership of the Pakistan Democratic Movement.
During his press conference, Fawad also reiterated the PTI’s criticism of the U.S. drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul earlier this week. “We want clarification on whether our airspace or land was used [by the U.S.] to launch the drone attack or not,” he said, perhaps not having heard the Foreign Office explicitly deny it.
Similarly, Inter-Services Public Relations Director-General Maj. Gen. Babar Iftikhar also rejected such speculation, saying there was “no question on the use of the Pakistani soil in Zawahiri’s killing.”