ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a key ally of the ruling coalition, has distanced itself from the statements issued by some party stalwarts opposing the government move to ban the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) as a political party, terming it their “personal” opinion.

Talking to Dawn here on Tuesday after issuing a formal brief statement disowning the remarks of former senator Farhatullah Babar on the matter, PPP Secretary General Nayyar Hussain Bokhari said since the proposal of banning the PTI had not been discussed at any level in the party, whatever the party leaders had stated, should be taken as “their personal viewpoint”.

Mr Bokhari’s comments came a day after Federal Information Minister Ataullah Tarar in a news conference announced that the government had decided to ban the PTI as a political party and initiate trial of its leaders under Article 6. Hours after the information minister’s presser, a number of leaders belonging to other political parties, including the PPP, opposing the move complained they had not been consulted by the ruling PML-N on the matter.

PPP’s veteran MNA from Suk­kur Syed Khursheed Shah told DawnNews he heard the government decision as others did. “We should do politics only because such decisions don’t address iss­ues,” he asserted before clarifying that he would stand along with his party and its policy on the matter.

Bokhari says PPP to make collective decision after in-house talks, only if ‘N’ formally takes them on board

On the other hand, former PPP senators Raza Rabbani and Farhatullah Babar openly opposed the idea of banning the PTI and warned that such a move would cause more chaos in the country.

Mr Rabbani said banning a party was against the norms of democracy and urged the government to refrain from taking such a decision, stating that such a step would add political chaos and bog down the economy. “The government, if aggrieved by the judgement of the full court, should follow the constitutional way and file a review petition. The step of banning a political party in Pakistan’s history has always been unsuccessful and been thrown into the dustbin of history,” he observed.

Earlier, another PPP stalwart Farhatullah Babar had termed such a move ‘rubbish’. “Talk of banning a political party or trial of a political leader for treason is rubbish. Unsustainable. Compounding political crisis… Pakistani democracy, indeed state itself, is unlikely to sustain this self-imposed crisis. Be warned,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Mr Bokhari, however, said since the government had not taken the PPP onboard on the subject matter, therefore, there was no need for the party to make any official statement at this point of time. He said they were not taking the minister’s announcement seriously. They would consider it a serious move only when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif or his brother Nawaz Sharif would officially contact and inform President Asif Ali Zardari or PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari about it, he added.

The PPP secretary general, who assumed the position after the resignation of Mr Babar in November last year, said when the PML-N would formally apprise his leadership about such a move, they would hold an in-house consultation on the matter either at the platform of the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) or the core committee. He said the meeting could be convened after the return of the party chairman from the United States and, if needed, the meeting could also be held through a video conference.

Referring to the statement of Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar that the decision to ban the PTI was “not final”, the PPP leader said contradictory statements were also coming from within the ruling PML-N.

Mr Bokhari preferred silence when he was reminded of a press conference in the past in which Mr Bhutto-Zardari as the country’s foreign minister had opposed the move to ban the PTI. He said the party would come out with a “collective decision” on the matter.

Speaking at a news conference in Karachi on May 12, last year, the PPP chairman had described the violent protests by the PTI supporters after the party chief’s arrest on May 9 as acts of “treason” and “terrorism” and comparing it with militant outfits, he had turned down suggestions to ban the PTI.

But he had warned that if Imran Khan’s party insisted on an “armed rebellion”, it would lead to the point “where we will be forced to ban such an organisation”.

Responding to a question about PTI’s future after the May 9 attacks, he said: “It won’t be my decision that there should be a ban [on PTI] or not. They [PTI] need to decide first whether they have really decided to now take up armed resistance in Pakistan. But if they still claim to be a political party and disown all those elements involved in the violence, then I don’t see why there should be any ban.

“But if they decide that they are going to do an armed rebellion against the state of Pakistan, then absolutely there will be circumstances where we will be forced to ban such an organisation”.

Earlier, in reply to a similar question, he had called himself “the last person to support a ban on any political party” and recalled PPP’s “victimisation” under dictatorial rule and when it was even deprived of its electoral symbol. Due to those curbs, he said, the party was still not allowed to contest the polls under the banner of the PPP, and it went into elections under the PPP-Parliamentarian.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2024