LAHORE - The Jamaat-e-Islami central shura is likely to propose the name of incumbent Ameer Syed Munawwar Hassan including two others to lead the party for next five years.
The 3-day shura meeting will start at Mansoora on Friday (today) with the JI chief Syed Munawwar Hassan in the chair. The moot, a regular feature of the party, would approve the JI annual plan for the year 2014. A report regarding the JI’s performance in 2013 would be presented at the meeting. The audit report for the outgoing year would also be presented, while the shura will approve the party budget for 2014.
Reportedly, the JI chief had excused holding the party’s top slot in future, but the party leaders categorically denied the news report.
It has been the tradition that JI shura proposes name of party chief for next tenure; however two more names are also proposed. Traditionally, the party members, who are currently more than 30,000, vote for the incumbent party Ameer.
After the shura meeting, ballot papers are sent to the party members who vote for their favourite candidate. A party leader told TheNation that the process would start from April 25 and conclude until April 30. It is to be mentioned here that the JI is the only party that exercises direct voting method to elect its chief.
‘RULERS LACK COURAGE TO TRY MUSH’
JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan has said that the rulers don’t have the courage to hold Pervez Musharraf’s trial.
Talking to the media and delegations at Mansoora on Thursday, he ,however, prayed for the health of the former military dictator so that he could face the truth and the trial.
Syed Munawar Hasan said that the political situation as also the general circumstances around seemed to be in Musharraf’s favour. In fact, he said, there was no such precedent in the country’s history that a dictator was indicted.
As such, the people still believed that a farce would continue and Pervez Musharraf won’t be punished, he said, adding, that the rulers also seemed to be helpless as the case had not yet taken the start in real sense. “The vehicle is not in the first gear so far and when the case starts, it would be known how many others would be involved therein,” he added.
He said that the JI wanted to give sufficient time to the government for resolving the issues being faced by the country. He said we did not want to bring the people on roads to give an impression that the Opposition did not allow the government enough time to address the problems of the people.
However, he said, so far, the government had not shown seriousness in solving even a single issue and was wasting time on non-issues.
The country was confronted with the countless problems as was the case during the Zardari regime, he said.
He said after the unanimous resolution of the APC approving talks with the Taliban, there had been some hope that the government would be serious in tackling the issue of terrorism and lawlessness, but instead of going for talks, the government, under the US pressure, started unilateral efforts for friendship with India.
He said that the rulers had wasted so much time that it would be foolish to expect any good from them. Price-hike, unemployment and increase in taxes and privatisation were serious problems and the situation was getting grim due to IMF pressure, he said.
Munawar said that a major issue was the restoration of peace in Karachi and a military action was going on there yet peace remained a dream.
He said people were being gunned down there every day and target killings, extortion and abductions for ransom were continuing as usual.
He said there had been the hope that the government would hold LG elections for the prompt solution of the people’s problems, but the government was trying to delay these on one pretext or the other.
Meanwhile, JI deputy chief and KP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq said that if the Federal Information Minister Pervez Rashid wanted to hold protest rallies in the KP against price- hike, the provincial government would welcome him and also provide him the necessary facilities.
In a statement, he said that primarily, the Federal government was responsible for the price-hike in the country because it was due to its wrong policies that the poor was getting poorer and the rich, richer.
He said that after coming to power, the PML-N had forgotten its election promises and its sole attention was to benefit its near and dear ones. He said the Federal Finance Minister’s promise for happy days shortly was simply a dream as far as the country remained under the clutches of the IMF.