Islamabad, Pakistan: Every time there is an election in Pakistan, there are rumors and allegations of rigging, thereby there is nothing new. A simple majority of 169 seats out of the 336-member National Assembly are needed to bag the slot of Prime Minister ship and this figure cannot be attained by any political party after final results have appeared.
Instead of endless debate about whether elections were rigged or not, political parties should move ahead to form a government, and elections of Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly would determine who will lead the country for a five-year term of the Assembly. Every passing day is important for political parties because within twenty-one days (February 29) there will be a session of the National Assembly in which the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, and Leader of the House will be elected and after that, the government will be formed. Before that, the Election Commission will announce all the winners within fourteen days. The process of complaints related to elections is a time-consuming process as election tribunals will continue to decide on it which will take a long time, even years.
Political maneuverability is an important issue right now and major political parties are holding a series of meetings and they understand that all the political forces should complete this process of government formation in a positive manner without any chaos and confusion.
PTI should also change its style of politics in the context of the public mandate and take the path of politics by sitting inside the assemblies so that the long-standing problems and challenges of the country can be solved. If the PTI plays its positive role by sitting in the government in KPK and opposition in the rest of the assemblies and shows its good governance performance, surely its relations with the establishment can be expected to improve because KPK is a province in which the provincial government, together with the security forces, can take forward the issues of terrorism and related subjects and development in the newly annexed areas, but it depends on the PTI.
PTI has sane elements too who can explain the reality to their leader former prime minister Imran Khan that hooliganism and chaos will never allow the situation to be normal and would further aggravate PTI’s relations with the establishment.
After the elections today, Pakistan once again has a golden opportunity in which all the political parties and leaders can play an important role in the country’s development because all the major political parties have been given a good representation by the people so that they together can take Pakistan out of the difficult economic and political crisis.
The leadership of PTI has two clear ways, one way is positive politics on national affairs by staying inside the parliament, and the other way is to stubbornly shout “I do not obey” as in the past and create chaos outside the parliament in the name of rigging. The encirclement, the unnecessary harassment of the Jalsa-Jalosa, certainly caused enormous damage to the party in the past and will continue to happen and furthermore will continue to cause political turmoil and economic anxiety in the country.
While PMLN leadership must review its concept of the “House of Sharifs” and must come out of greed of having everything in their hands. Pakistan and Punjab are not production mills owned by the “House of Sharifs” rather they belong to the 225 million people of Pakistan. It has a majority in Punjab and it should form a government in Punjab but it must not manipulate everybody that matters to get the PM office as well. The PPP must move ahead for the betterment of Pakistan by forgetting the bitter experiences of the PDM government.
This is a turning point for the political leadership of PTI where thoughtful decisions will have to be made.
