Aamir Qureshi—AFP
Taking direct aim at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s planned long march on Islamabad this week, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Nawaz Sharif on Monday said that the public cannot be left at the “mercy of a group of troublemakers.”
In a posting on Twitter following a virtual meeting with senior PMLN leader—chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif—he said the public “cannot be left at the mercy of troublemakers who have already inflicted poverty, inflation, and unemployment on them.” Without eradicating such extremist elements, he said, “Pakistan cannot achieve its true destination,” adding that the entire country needed to unite to “block the path of such miscreants.”
The virtual huddle occurred after the coalition government decided that it would not bow to the PTI’s demands for early elections and would complete the constitutional term of Parliament. According to sources, the coalition partners all decided to work together to take tough decisions to stabilize the economy, improve governance and enact necessary legislative reforms.
According to PMLN officials who attended the meeting, Nawaz backed the coalition government’s decision to not proceed to early elections and directed the PMLN members of the federal cabinet to formulate a plan to tackle the PTI’s long march and share it with all coalition partners. They said that the meeting had also discussed prevailing political, economic and, constitutional problems, and reviewed progress on the government’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revive a suspended bailout program.
Per the sources, Nawaz stressed on ensuring that the next federal budget—set to be tabled in June—provided relief to the public.