LAHORE - Opposition demands midterm elections to stop the possible intervention of unelected forces to save the democratic system of governance.

A deadlock is persisting between the ruling coalition led by PML-N and the Opposition over the issue of Panama leaks ToRs. Opposition parties are mulling over launching a protest drive and seeking remedy from the Supreme Court on Panamagate for the accountability of the ruling family in the first phase.

Unconfirmed reports are circulating in the two power centres of Islamabad and Punjab about an in-house change and replacing the existing setup because of ruling party’s continuous failure to deal with major issues of corruption, load shedding and others, according to the opposition.

All the opposition parties have consensus over the option of in-house change to save the democratic system. No major opposition party including the PPP and PTI desires to pack up the democratic dispensation because it is their lifeline to keep themselves alive in the political arena.

Against the backdrop of gathering storm on opposition’s front, a multi-party conference of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly yesterday demanded midterm elections in a bid to save the democratic system.

Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed, PML-Q leader Waqas Hassan Moakal, PPP leader Faiza Malik and JI leader Dr Waseem Akhtar said, “It is better to hold midterm elections than to push the army to clean the mess of so-called democrats.”

“A protest movement against the government is likely to be launched after July 20. It is better for the ruling family to voluntarily present themselves for accountability before they would be dragged to a court room,” warned the opposition leaders in Punjab Assembly.

The opposition would not tolerate further delay on ToRs. There should be an across the board accountability starting from the prime minister and his family, they demanded.

“In the next Punjab Assembly session, Opposition will raise the issue of loadshedding, the deaths occurred because of long intervals of power shut outages in the province. The ruling party must resolve the issue on priority basis or the opposition will launch the protest on this serious matter too,” warned the opposition parties while taking note of the deaths due to non-availability of electricity.

Opposition in Punjab Assembly also demanded cut in the tariff of the electricity to bring it in the reach of the working classes, saying the government was overcharging the masses in the name of uncalculated and unfair surcharges and taxes.

Civilian intelligence agencies have already launched survey exercise to prepare ‘Pulse Reports’ to gauge the public mood over the issues of Panama leaks and loadshedding to assess the possible impact of opposition’s upcoming anti-government drive.

Field surveys have been launched to gauge the public feelings over the issues of Panama leaks and loadshedding in particular and other matters in general to assess the possible impacts of opposition’s upcoming anti-government drive to suggest the ruling party a bailout plan in the form of Pulse Reports, revealed the highly-placed officials to The Nation in an earlier development on gathering storm of the opposition.

The survey exercise to prepare Pulse Reports is focusing Punjab followed by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Balochistan has a minor role in this exercise. The main thrust of the exercise is on the districts falling in central and southern Punjab.

Internal wings of the civilian intelligence services are carrying out the exercise covering the business community, farmers, lawyers, doctors, trade unions, student organizations, markets and transport unions, public, private sector organizations and others.

The surveys will also include inputs from all major programmes, debates, public meetings, seminars and sittings held to ignite public discussion on the issue of Panama leaks and loadshedding, disclosed the officials.