\u201cNawaz Sharif should get 30 seats instead of 100 but refuse to get support of establishment,\u201d says ex-PM
\nLAHORE
\nFormer prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday advised Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) supremo Nawaz Sharif against accepting the establishment\u2019s support to come to power following the February 8 elections, media reported.
\nIn an informal conversation with journalists at ThinkFest 2024 in Lahore, Abbasi suggested that Nawaz should be satisfied with 30 seats instead of securing 100 seats with the establishment\u2019s support.
\n\u201cNawaz Sharif should get 30 seats instead of 100 but refuse to get support of the establishment; he should not be discouraged by the number of seats,\u201d he advised.
\nHe said he did not agree with the way Nawaz was currently employing to get into power.
\n\u201cThose who lack moral courage, should not enter the field of politics,\u201d he said. He also relayed that there was no power in the \u201cchair\u201d of the prime minister in Pakistan, maintaining that when he was the prime minister he just \u201cacted\u201d as the premier.
\nThe former prime minister said he had not left politics and was still with the PML-N. He said he would not contest elections against his party. He said the political relationship with the PMLN was no longer intact.
\nAbbasi said behind the failure of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan was the stolen elections of 2018 and he was presently facing the situation because of that episode.
\nHe said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was humiliating politicians and he was the first victim of the NAB. The PML-N leader said he had repeatedly asked former PM Shehbaz Sharif to abolish the institute of accountability bureau.
\nThe former PM said he had advised former finance minister Miftah Ismail not to resign and told him to stand firm but the PML-N forced him to resign, and \u201chumiliated\u201d him.
\nEarlier, addressing the event, the PML-N leader said, \u201cWe have a Constitution that mentions delimitation of provinces.\u201d He said Pakistan needed a democratic system and the present parliamentary system needed a lot of improvement. He said be it governance or system of relations, change was inevitable. \u201cPakistan needs dialogue and leadership should talk to neighbouring countries,\u201d Abbasi said adding that earlier the system had failed and people kept blaming each other.
\nHe claimed that the upcoming elections would not bring any improvement, and only new faces would reach assemblies. He alleged that politicians, judiciary and the establishment together were corrupting the Constitution, and that Pakistan\u2019s failure was due to lack of leadership.
\nAbbasi said he did not believe that the election would solve any problems, and maintained that bureaucracy needed to be overhauled in a big way, while there was an urgent need to work on bureaucracy in the Federation. The biggest problem here was controlling bureaucracy, and people of the local government came up through corruption.
\nMany decades have passed, the prime minister and the ministers did not have power; the bureaucracy was asked to work and they replied that the order had come from the \u201cabove\u201d, the former premier alleged.
\nHe suggested immediate reforms in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to benefit the country. He claimed that five education systems were running in Pakistan, the quality of education was very poor, the education boards had completely failed and those need to be improved in quality.
\nHe called for strengthening women and giving them opportunities. Women were strong, but they did not get opportunities, he added. In every field, women performed better than men, he claimed.
\nPunjab was at the forefront, but more provinces should be made. He said if something would happen to Punjab, Pakistan\u2019s system would collapse. Dialogue with Pashtuns and Baloch should be done and their problems should be solved. He regretted that no province was working for dialogue with Pashtuns and Baloch.
\nIn future, no political party would be able to get two-thirds majority, Abbasi claimed and said people did not know how to talk if they sit in the opposition outside the parliament. Abbasi said new generation of the country had lost hope due to the current situation of the country.
\n\u201cOn the issue of American intervention, I will say that if the house is weak, people will come from outside,\u201d Abbasi said and added that the army came when politicians gave them a chance.
\nFormer finance minister Miftah Ismail said if the PTI or any party was not given electoral symbol, the next elections would become controversial. In an informal conversation with the media at the same venue, Miftah alleged that the former finance minister Ishaq Dar\u2019s criticism of his economic policies was heard because he was a relative of Sharif family. \u201cPeople in Pakistan are capable. It is not right to depend only on the Sharif family, the founder of PTI and Bhutto family,\u201d he added.
\nThe problem of how to run Pakistan was still not solved, Miftah said and claimed that no one wanted to follow the Constitution. The problem was not the Constitution but implementation of the Constitution, he added and said the provinces did not trust each other and the country did not have local government system, though it existed in the Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNawaz Sharif should get 30 seats instead of 100 but refuse to get support of establishment,\u201d says ex-PM LAHORE Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday advised Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) supremo Nawaz Sharif against accepting the establishment\u2019s support to come to power following the February 8 elections, media reported. In an informal conversation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-380785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n