Ex-PM Imran calls for solution to put Pakistan on path to progress

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

Former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has made an appeal that it was high time that all state institutions sat with his party and found a solution to put the country on the path of progress.

"I would like to appeal for talks because what is currently happening is not a solution,” he said in a live talk streamed on YouTube.

While being in government or outside of it, Imran has always aggressively rejected any talks with his arch-rivals, who are now in government.

"The country is heading towards an imminent disaster since hyperinflation is around the corner. But the incumbent rulers are least bothered as they have stashed the looted wealth abroad,” Imran said.

Separately, in an interview to a TV channel, he said he had been "isolated” at his home, cut off from the senior leadership of his party, while thousands of his supporters have been arrested. "Anyone who supports the PTI is either arrested or has gone underground,” he said.

Imran said that he still feared for his life after two assassination attempts. "I am not at all safe,” he said, and asserted that his appeal for dialogue should not be considered his weakness, adding that the physical and economic excesses being committed against the people of Pakistan was no solution. "The solution to the country’s problems rests in the state institutions functioning within their constitutional roles,” he said.

"Whenever I ask for a dialogue, the incumbent rulers think I am getting weak and they begin unleashing more excesses on PTI leaders and workers with the hope of crushing the party,” he regretted. He said no government could remove an ideology inculcated among the youth of the country.

He also warned the powers that be that they should exercise restraint as their attempt to crush the PTI could destroy the country. "No political party has ever witnessed such a barbaric action from the rulers,” he said.

Khan said the country had already become a banana republic - a poor country with a weak government that depends on foreign money - because the rulers were not even respecting court orders to hold elections.

"The whole establishment, civil administration and the Election Commission of Pakistan are standing with the PDM [Pakistan Democratic Movement], but the rulers are still afraid of holding elections,” the former prime minister said.

The rulers, he said, were actually saying: "They would hold elections when Imran Khan was eliminated” from the political scene.

Describing the PTI leaders announcing defections as "forced divorces”, Khan said he himself had condemned the May 9 arson attack on the Lahore corps commander’s house when he came to know about it while present in the Supreme Court the next day.

"Who will not condemn such a brazen attack on army installations?” he wondered, stressing that weakening the institution of the army was tantamount to weakening the country.

The former premier’s video address came at a time when PTI leaders were leaving the party at pressers being held every other day. Referring to this at the outset of his address, Khan quipped: "I am not holding this media talk to leave the PTI.”

The former premier, however, struck a defiant tone, warning that his party’s popularity was only rising because of the crackdown and would still win an election whenever it was held. He said he only wanted to talk to take the country out of the current crisis.