Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice-President Fawad Chaudhry Thursday claimed if Pakistan did not vote within 90 days after the dissolution of assemblies, it would be a violation of the Constitution – which would stand suspended because of this breach.
In his first press conference a day after his release on bail in Islamabad, the former information minister said on Thursday that “if any administration or authority tries to defer the elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa beyond the 90-day period allowed by the Constitution, Article 6 of the Constitution will be applicable on them”.
As per the law, the “unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason”.
During the presser, he also addressed the accusation levelled against the previous PTI government of “aiding and abetting terrorism” in the country through lax policies and leniency – the rhetoric set by the leadership of the ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM). Fawad said: “You are trying to shift the blame on PTI, however, we had defeated terrorism. During the years that the PTI was in power, Imran Khan handled matters of Afghanistan and the United States in the appropriate manner.” There was no blast in Pakistan during our time, he insisted.
He further clarified that the PTI’s policy was to try and curb hatred and said: “Imran Khan’s stance was that political problems cannot be solved by military force.”
The former federal minister went on to say that the current leadership in Afghanistan respected Khan, “but the federal government’s stance” had destroyed the PTI chief’s Afghan policy. “You cannot solve the TTP issue without the Afghan leadership’s backing,” Fawad further said. “Using force will make matters more complicated.”
