ISLAMABAD: A day after the announcement by Imran Khan of countrywide protests to press his demand for a thorough investigation into the alleged rigging in last year’s general elections, the government showed on Monday its readiness to resume dialogue with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Ahmed Shah claimed that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had in his presence asked Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to look into the possibility of resuming talks with the PTI.

In the dialogue in early September, the government team was led by Mr Dar and that of the PTI by its Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Despite public pronouncements of their willingness to hold talks to end over 15 weeks of political crisis, both the government and the PTI have been accusing each other of stalling the dialogue.

Sources privy to the Prime Minister Office told Dawn that the government was open to talks, but not willing to concede on its earlier stance that election tribunals were the only legal forum to decide on election petitions, and not the proposed judicial commission.

Dar says he has not received any such directive from PM

“The government never called off the talks and will be happy to resume these with the PTI. But if the PTI leaders think they can squeeze a decision of their choice from us by holding rallies and threatening countrywide shutdown, they are mistaken,” said an aide to the prime minister.

“Someone from the government side will contact the PTI and let’s see how things move forward. We are under no pressure of whatsoever nature to respond to PTI’s latest threats of shutting down cities and then the entire country,” he added.

Finance Minister Dar refused to make any comment on the issue, saying that he would talk about it at a news conference on Tuesday.

He neither confirmed nor denied Khursheed Shah’s claim, but said he had not received any directive from the prime minister and that he was not in a hurry to hold talks with the PTI as he had more important things to do for the country.

Prime Minister Sharif is leaving for the UK on Tuesday to attend a conference on Afghanistan. He will stay there till Dec 6.

The leader of opposition, who met Mr Sharif earlier in the day to discuss the issue of appointment of chief election commissioner, told Dawn that the prime minister had been advised to take all parliamentary and opposition parties into confidence before making a fresh initiative for talks with the PTI.

According to Mr Shah, the issue came under discussion when he brought to the notice of the prime minister a reported statement of Information Minister Pervez Rashid categorically ruling out the possibility of resuming dialogue with the PTI after Imran Khan said he would paralyse the entire country.

Responding to Mr Khan’s ‘Plan C’, the information minister had said the government would not resume talks until the PTI chief gave up what he called “the politics of turmoil”.

According to Mr Shah, the prime minister expressed surprise over Mr Rashid’s statement.

Senior PTI leader Dr Arif Alvi, who was also part of his party’s team negotiating with the government, said that although the PTI was hoping for resumption of talks, it believed that these would be of no use until the government agreed to a “meaningful probe”.

During the talks, the focus of the two sides was reportedly on preparation of the terms of reference (ToRs) and legal implications of the findings of the proposed judicial commission to be formed to investigate allegations of rigging in the 2013 elections.

Mr Alvi said the PTI chairman had already withdrawn his main demand of the prime minister’s resignation and now the party expected the government to at least agree on the ToRs so that the commission could determine whether or not the elections were held in a transparent manner.

The judicial commission, the government contends, should only determine the veracity of allegations of the PTI chairman that the PML-N, in connivance with the former chief justice of the Supreme Court and officials of the Election Commission, had engineered election results in its favour.

The PTI had demanded the setting up of a judicial commission, with special ToRs, to carry out a time-bound investigation into the rigging. In its recommendations which should be legally binding, the commission must declare if the present government had come into being as a result of free and fair elections. Otherwise, the PTI said, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must resign, dissolve the National Assembly and announce fresh elections, preceded by sweeping electoral reforms.

The last time the two sides met was on Sept 8. Both Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri formally announced the ending of negotiations with the government on Sept 12 following an alleged crackdown in which about 300 activists of the two parties had been picked up by police in Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2014