LAHORE: Contrary to the views of its ally in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, the Jamaat-i-Islami does not see possibility of general election during current year.

“I don’t see general election in the year 2015 and believe that the federal and provincial governments should be allowed to complete their term and deliver to the masses,” JI emir Senator Sirajul Haq said here on Thursday.

Talking to the media after a meeting of the party’s consultative body, he said the next election would be the day of reckoning for the rulers and the party that failed to deliver would have to face the wrath of the electorate.

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“We don’t want any party to get public sympathy on the ground that it did not get full time to deliver,” he added.

Senator Haq said the two years rule of the present federal government was a failure and urged it to concentrate on the service delivery during the term left with it.

“The (PML-N) government has completely failed to implement its election manifesto. The slogans of ending loadshedding and provision of jobs to the youth remain unfulfilled.”

He said that the ministers and advisers might have made fortunes but the life of the common man had worsened during the last two years.

He said that as long as the corridors of powers remained closed to the workers and the poor, the plight of the workers would not change.

He said the JI had decided to launch a mass movement for ending status quo as the JI believed that as long as the present corrupt system continued the lot of the poor could not be changed.

Mr Haq took the credit for the formation of the Judicial Commission and termed it a big success of the political Jirga.

To a question on the Yemen situation, the JI chief said it was a local issue that should be buried there. He said an attempt was being made to project the Yemen situation as a Shia-Sunni conflict, and warned that such a conspiracy would only end up in a large scale destruction.

“We are with Saudi Arabia,” he declared, adding Pakistan and Turkey should play the role of mediator and added that the Yemen war had done great harm to the Muslim world while Islam’s enemies had benefited from it.

To a question on the changes in the Saudi government, he said it appeared that the changes were being made in accordance with the wishes of the Saudis.

The JI chief was satisfied at the performance of his party in the recently held cantonment polls in which the JI won five out of around 200 seats.

“The JI made an improvement in the Cantonment elections and I’m sure that the party will emerge as a big political force in the local body elections and next general elections.”

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2015

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