Everyone knows that the establishment controls political parties, claims Fawad Chaudhry
ISLAMABAD, Jan 07 (SABAH): Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice-President Fawad Ahmed Chaudhry said that in the no-confidence motion against party chief Imran Khan, it was actually the PTI versus the military; otherwise, stable governments are not toppled the way the PTI rule was wrapped up.
Imran Khan was removed from premiership through a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly in April last year by an alliance of 13 political parties — the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) helmed by JUI-F Chief Fazlur Rehman.
Speaking on “BBC” programme “HARDtalk”, Fawad Chaudhry said that everyone knew who controlled these allied parties and from whom they were taking directions.
He stressed that everyone knows that the establishment controls political parties. However, politics should have been left to politicians alone, he said. According to Imran Khan, former Chief of army staff (COAS) General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa was involved in overthrowing the PTI government, Fawad said.
Fawad Chaudhry said that political crisis leads to an economic crisis. The economic crisis was kicked up by unnecessarily sending Imran Khan’s government home, he said.
To a question that the economic crisis facing the sitting government is actually the legacy of the PTI government, Fawad claimed the country was in a shambles when the PTI formed government and the country’s growth rate went up to 6% under the PTI rule, and that happened despite the Covid pandemic.
He said Pakistan’s economic crisis emanated from the unconstitutional removal of Imran Khan’s government.
Programme host Stephen Sackur said Pakistan’s debt stood at $116 billion when the PTI took over in 2018, but it rose to $230 billion when the party left government. Fawad responded saying his party’s government had to borrow funds to return the loans taken by the previous government. He maintained that his party’s government worked to restructure the loans and did as far as economy is concerned. He said Zardari and Sharifs had put Pakistan into a vicious debt cycle.
Sackur said figures did not bear out his claim, referring to promises made by the PTI before elections, especially those about corruption, He said that Pakistan fell by 20 points on the corruption perception index (CPI). Fawad disagreed, arguing that these were the departments related to rule of law, for example judiciary, not the political side, that had contributed to that index. He said Imran gave the country one of the cleanest governments in 75 years of history.
The PTI leader said it is not possible to create economic stability without political stability as [political uncertainty in the country is such that] no one knows who will rule the country three or five months from now.
Fawad Chaudhry said that Pakistan’s ambassador in the United States dispatched a cipher after his meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu and Imran Khan presented the same cipher. He said that the US official had said in the cipher that Pak-US relations will be hinged on the success or failure of the no-confidence motion.
The PTI government, he said, sent the cipher to President Dr. Arif Alvi and requested him to form a judicial inquiry over the issue.
“The PTI never said it seeks a war with the US. Instead, it wants good bilateral ties. No party wants confrontation with the US,” Fawad noted. However, at the same time the PTI doesn’t want any country including the US to dictate Pakistan.
Saying bygones are bygones, Fawad said his party looks forward to having good relations with the US, and hopes the superpower too would like to collaborate with Pakistan’s most popular political party.
Imran Khan never called Osama bin Laden a martyr, Fawad said, adding it was just a slip of the tongue, a clarification of which had been issued by the party. The PTI improved the estranged relationship with the US after it took over the government, he said.
“The PTI government influenced the Taliban to allow the evacuation of millions of foreigners stranded in Afghanistan,” he said.
The PTI leader also commented on the current state of affairs with the Afghan government, saying the incumbent government in Islamabad has ruined the PTI’s efforts in this regard, as they did not continue Imran Khan’s Afghanistan policy. “The PTI government was on the verge of resolving the issue through negotiations with the Taliban government in Afghanistan,” he said.
The PTI, he remarked, can wait for the general elections, but the government is not in the mood to hold them. Even they do not want the local bodies elections in the federal capital as the incumbent rulers know that whenever elections are held, people will kick them out, he said.
Pakistan needs elections, he said. “We want elections to take place in the country as soon as possible so that there is stability in the country and people’s problems are solved,” he added.
Sackur also asked the PTI leader about DG ISI Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum’s press conference, in which he, alongside then ISPR chief Lt Gen Babar Iftikhar, said Imran Khan asked the military to perform an unconstitutional act during the no-confidence vote.
Fawad Chaudhry said: “The current [army] leadership has just assumed the office and we are hoping there will be a change in the policy, but the last chief was not talking the truth when he said we asked [for their] help. We only asked for their neutrality.”
He dismissed the notion that the PTI was against the military, saying his party was not against anyone. “In Pakistan, unelected institutions like the judiciary and the military exercised their powers beyond Constitution [in the past], which is known to everyone.”
When asked about what evidence there was to back up Imran Khan’s claims about being removed through a foreign conspiracy, Fawad Chaudhry said his party presented evidence — the cipher — about the United States’ alleged involvement in the ouster of the PTI government in key meetings, but they were not paid heed to.
He, however, said that the PTI did not want “confrontational relations” with the US. He added that no one should interfere in Pakistan’s governance matters. “People of Pakistan should have the right to choose people and no one including the US, the UK or any other country have a right to decide who will rule us.”
About security challenges, Fawad Chaudhry said the then-PTI government was holding “continuous negotiations” with the Afghan government “and we were close to actually resolve the issue”.
He, however, blamed the incumbent government for “ruining” all efforts due to their “ignorance of Afghanistan’s history and problems”.
The PTI leader said his party could wait for elections “but this government is not ready to hold polls as they know people will oust them through vote”. He insisted that elections were needed for Pakistan and not for the PTI. “We are asking that elections should be held at the earliest so that a new responsible government can take care of economic affairs.”
He said Pakistan plunged into huge political chaos after the “unconstitutional” removal of Imran Khan. “Now people are standing on one side and the present ruling elite, that we call imported government, is standing on the other side and that’s the primary problem in Pakistan.”
Fawad Chaudhry claimed that Pakistan’s reserves stood at $16bn when the no-confidence was moved against the ex-premier and now the reserves had slipped below $6bn.
He accused the incumbent government of having no economic plan, saying terrorism had also revisited the country. “Without political stability, how can you have economic stability in the country?” he asked.
When questioned about PTI’s alleged “failures” in leaving a pile of debt, Chaudhry denied the impression, saying the country was in shambles when the PTI took over in 2018.
“We fought Covid-19, we created 5.5 million jobs, and we improved the growth rate,” he said, adding his party worked harder to return the debt their predecessors had piled on in previous years.
“We were doing really well as far as the economy was concerned, but the current turmoil has thrown everything out of the window,” he said.
In response to a query regarding Pakistan’s dismal ranking on Transparency International’s corruption perception index, the former information minister said the Imran-led government was the “cleanest government” in 75 years and that there was no scandal in connection to the political side.
Primarily, he said, corruption issues surfaced in departments like “the judiciary” that dealt with rule of law dropped the corruption ranking of Pakistan.
Fawad Chaudhry said he was facing terrorism as well as blasphemy charges while Imran was facing 28 criminal cases, which he called “manipulated”.
To another question, the PTI leader called the ECP accusations against Imran in the Toshakhana case “funny”, saying the charges were “mala fide” and hoped the courts would deliver justice in this regard.