ISLAMABAD - Fearing break-up in government, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf negotiations the Political Jirga rushed in by presenting its own proposals for resolution of the issue and facilitating another round of negotiations between the two sides. But even the latest meeting between government and PTI seems to have produced no results.
Talking to media after the meeting with PTI negotiators Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Khan Tareen, Political Jirga head Sirajul Haq disclosed that they have given their set of proposals for the resolution of the matter through negotiations to all the three stakeholders – PTI, PAT and government –with the hope that all of them would show flexibility in their stiff stand on some issues.
Though Siraj did not say a word about the stalemate in the negotiations, the presentation of proposals by the jirga for the solution of the issue shows that the negotiators had landed in dead allay. Informed sources said that in their final reply to the PTI proposals the government team had not changed its stance on some issues, including the working mode of the Judicial Commission and procedure of verifying the rigging charges.
The talks were about to collapse when Political Jirga members stepped in and convinced the PTI negotiators to carry on with the negotiations and the talks, which according to both PTI and government negotiators were concluded, resumed again with both sides having another round at the residence of Jahangir Tareen on Thursday night.
After the meeting, PTI and government team members avoided media with tension visible on their faces and their body language was also not friendly at all. It was also unclear if the two sides would sit again across the table in a day or so.
Sirajul Haq did not share even a single point of their proposals with the media. He confined himself to saying that they have given their proposals to PTI, PAT and government negotiating teams with the appeal to all of them to bring flexibility in their stand to make it a win-win situation for all. To a question, Siraj said they wanted to see the protesters staging sit-in in front of the Parliament return with smiles on their face while they also wanted to see the system coming out victorious from this crisis.
Sources informed that PTI negotiators Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jahangir Tareen in their meeting with Political Jirga members complained about the non-serious attitude on part of the government negotiators who were not ready to even accept their basic demands of audit of rigging charges in the 2013 general elections.
Political Jirga after an hour-long discussion with the PTI team convinced them to have another round with government team to narrow down their differences as well as to have discussion on the proposed solution to the dispute given by the Political Jirga.
Sources in the PTI team said Jahangir Tareen admitted the difference between the two sides on the definition of rigging as they wanted sample examination of certain number of suspected constituencies to be proposed by the PTI, not exceeding 30 in number. But the government team wanted investigation of the rigging as a whole in the elections 2013 to ascertain whether results were engineered to the benefit of some particular party and to check whether Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz as a party had any role in it or not.
A PML-N leader aware of the developments shared with The Nation that government had accepted the demand of PTI for the constitution of Judicial Commission through an ordinance instead of adopting a lengthy procedure of making it through an act of parliament. He said it was also not clear that how they would compel the Chief Justice of Pakistan to head the proposed three-member commission. Similarly, there was difference of opinion between the two sides on the role and composition of the proposed supervisory council, which would oversee the whole exercise.