LARKANA: Describing Imran Khan’s long march and Dr Qadri’s revolution as undemocratic moves, former Pakistan Muslim League-Functional secretary Imtiaz Shaikh has advised them to open political dialogue to address the issues they want to be resolved.

Speaking at a press conference at the press club here on Tuesday, the special assistant to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said they [the two parties] were out to derail democracy and labelled their move as a ‘conspiracy’. Parliament was the right forum to discuss the issues, he said.

Tabling a no-confidence move in the assembly was their constitutional right, he said, adding in the same breath that they would not opt for it because they were not sure about its success. Had they expected to bring in a no-confidence against the prime minister, they would have brought it sometime ago, he said. Mr Shaikh was confident that they would fail if they tabled it.

People would see Aug 14 would come and go and nothing would happen, he said and linked invoking of Article 245 of the constitution to an extraordinary measure in an extraordinary situation. He held Imran Khan and other political parties responsible for invoking the article.

He said Islamabad was the capital city and foreign diplomats lived there. Giving powers to the army under the article was not new; it had been done in the past also, he added.

Responding to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief’s demand for the PM’s resignation, he said it could be the personal view of Mr Hussain, adding that the assembly had elected the prime minister.

“We did not expect from Imran Khan such an undemocratic attitude to dislodge the government,” he said. Gathering crowd in Islamabad did not mean that the government would go, he said.

Replying to another question, he said he did not see any chance of ‘mid-term’ polls in the country.

He criticised the Sindh government for its failure to contain the law and order situation particularly in Khairpur Mir’s and Shikarpur districts.

The element of bad-governance in Sindh had collapsed the system where the local bodies institution had utterly failed, he observed.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2014