QUETTA: Awami National Party’s (ANP) central senior vice president Amir Haider Khan Hoti has said that his party’s central working committee in its two-day meeting held in Quetta has unanimously endorsed the party leadership’s decision of joining the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and decided to fully participate in public meetings and protests of the new opposition alliance.

He said this while speaking at a press conference after the party meeting on Saturday. He was accompanied by ANP secretary general Mian Iftikhar Hussain, MNA Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, provincial president Asghar Khan Achakzai, Sindh president Senator Shahi Syed, Zamarak Khan Piralizai and other party leaders.

Mr Hoti said that the PDM’s public meetings and other protests would remain peaceful. Through public meetings the opposition wanted the current rulers to realise that they had not come into power through a free and fair election and that they were selected by the establishment, he said, adding that the people of Pakistan could no longer tolerate these selected rulers.

Says PTI govt has failed in solving people’s problems

“Our protest will be democratic and political as all component parties of the PDM believe in democracy and supremacy of the Constitution. We will utilise all democratic measures against the government and we also have the option to come out of the parliament,” Mr Hoti said, adding that all parties included in the PDM alliance had taken all decisions with consensus.

Answering a question, Mr Hoti said: “We hope nobody would attempt to derail democracy in the country as Pakistan badly needs democracy to meet the challenges it is presently facing.”

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, instead of bringing some improvement in the country’s economy, had destroyed it. The country is now facing a serious economic crisis due to wrong economic policies of the PTI government’s financial managers.

He said the wrong foreign policy of the PTI government had pushed the country into isolation at the international level and now no international forum or even any Muslim country was supporting Pakistan today against India.

“If complete peace is established in the region, it will have a very positive effect on Pakistan,” he said.

The ANP leader said that elections in the country would always remain disputed unless reforms in the election process were introduced.

He said the “selected” government had failed to fulfill the promises it had made to the people before the election. “The people of the country were facing a price hike they had never experienced in the past. Prices of wheat flour, sugar and other commodities were increasing with every passing day and the government has no capacity to solve this problem,” he added.

The ANP leader criticised the government for what he called accepting tough conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for receiving a bailout package from it.

He claimed that the federal government prepared the budget according to conditions imposed by the IMF and that the people who had connections with the IMF were given important posts in the government. These people, he added, were implementing the IMF’s agenda instead of protecting the interests of the country’s people.

18th amendment

While referring to the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, he said moves were under way to roll back this important amendment which had empowered provinces to run their affairs on their own. Those who could not digest the 18th Amendment must realise that it was a very sensitive issue and no province would accept any change in it, he added.

He said the provinces and the erstwhile Fata which had now become a part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be given their due shares in the federal resources.

Mr Hoti expressed concern over disappearance of ANP’s provincial information secretary Asad Khan Achakzai, saying that despite passage of over two weeks the government and its agencies had failed in finding his whereabouts. “I count Asad Achakzai in missing persons because we have no information about his whereabouts,” he said, adding that he was suffering from kidney complications and needed special care due to his recent kidney transplant. He demanded that Asad Achakzai and all other missing persons from Balochistan and other areas of the country be recovered as soon as possible.

He said the people from civil society and other segments of society expressed their reservations about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), especially its western route. He said his party was not against development in Punjab, Sindh or any other province, but attention should also be given to development of Balochistan and KP.

The Multan-Sukkur Motorway and Karachi projects were important, but it was also necessary to extend the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway from Peshawar to Dera Ismail Khan and to Zhob, Qilla Saifullah, Quetta and Gwadar, he said, adding that no progress had been made in this regard.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2020