PM accuses Imran of ‘damaging’ democracy

ISLAMABAD   -   Prime Minister Shehbaz Shar­if, while targeting the alleged narrow approach of PTI chief Imran Khan in politics, has said that the ousted pre­mier wants to make his way to power “even if it means undermining” the country’s democratic system.

The PM’s comments come a day after Imran lamented that the coalition government had rejected his offer for talks.

“PTI chief’s recent diatribe against parliamentary democ­racy is the latest in a series of attacks that fly in the face of how democracy functions in modern nation-states,” the prime minister said in a tweet­ed. He added that the deposed premier’s “politics is aimed at making his way to power even if it means undermining foun­dations this country stands on”.

The PTI and the coalition government are at logger­heads as the former press­es on holding early elections. However, the ruling alliance has ruled out snap polls and vowed to not come under Khan’s pressure.

As the PTI chief speaks against state institutions and hurls abuses against the rul­ing alliance leaders, PM She­hbaz believes that his politics sole aim was coming back into power through any means necessary.

Earlier, the feder­al government had told the PTI chief that the threats and dialogue of­fer could not go hand in hand in response to Im­ran Khan’s offer of hold­ing talks on the condi­tion of announcing fresh general polls.

On Friday last, the PTI chief had softened his stance on possible talks with the leadership of government allies (Paki­stan Democratic Move­ment) and appeared to be striking a conciliato­ry tone as he signalled his openness to “sit and talk and give a date for the general elections”.

However, while mak­ing the offer he had also threatened to dissolve the Punjab and Khy­ber-Pakhtunkhwa as­semblies. The offer for talks to the government had appeared to mark a departure from the hard stance he had tak­en during his mammoth November 26 Rawalpin­di rally.

However, a day lat­er, while addressing the KP lawmakers through a video link from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore on Saturday last, Imran had lament­ed that the coalition gov­ernment rejected his of­fer for talks and directed lawmakers to “start pre­paring for elections”.