<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has said \u201cfair\u201d elections were possible without PTI Chairman Imran Khan, who is currently incarcerated in a graft case, and his party leaders jailed following violent riots in the country on May 9.<\/p>\n
However, the premier also stated that thousands of PTI members, who were not a part of \u201cunlawful activities\u201d, \u201cwill be running the political process\u201d and \u201cwill be participating in the elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
His statement comes days after the Election Commission of Pakistan finally announced<\/a> that polls in the country would be held January next year. Major political parties in the country have now began preparations for elections.<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a> with Associated Press<\/em> over the weekend, PM Kakar dismissed the possibility of the military establishment manipulating the election results to ensure the PTI doesn\u2019t win as \u201cabsolutely absurd\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the ECP would conduct the vote, adding that the chief election commissioner was appointed by Imran himself, so \u201cwhy would he turn in any sense of the word against him?\u201d<\/p>\n In response to question on whether he would recommend the judiciary to overturn Imran\u2019s conviction and enable him to run in the elections, the prime minister said he wouldn\u2019t interfere with decisions by the judiciary and stressed the judiciary should not be used \u201cas a tool for any political ends\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not pursuing anyone on a personal vendetta. But yes, we will ensure that the law is appropriate. Anyone, be it Imran Khan or any other politician who violates, in terms of their political behaviour, the laws of the country, then the restoration of the law has to be ensured. We cannot equate that with \u2026 political discrimination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Talking about PTI allegations pertaining to \u201cthreats to democracy\u201d and \u201cde facto military rule in Pakistan\u201d, the PM said the claims were \u201cpart and parcel of our political culture\u201d.<\/p>\n He said his government\u2019s working relationship with the military was \u201cvery smooth\u201d as well as \u201cvery open and candid\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have challenges of civil-military relationships, I\u2019m not denying that,\u201d he said, \u201cbut there are very different reasons for the imbalance\u201d.<\/p>\n According to PM Kakar, the solution was to gradually improve the performance of the civilian institutions \u201crather than weakening the current military organisation, because that\u2019s not going to solve any of our problems.\u201d<\/p>\n The premier also stated that when the ECP would announce the exact date for elections, his government would provide all kinds of financial, security and other assistance for the polls.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in a statement issued today, the PTI said any elections without Imran would be \u201cunacceptable, unlawful and unconstitutional\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe caretaker prime minister\u2019s statement is a manifestation of the insensitivity found in the state structure regarding the Constitution, democracy and national interests,\u201d it stated, noting that the PTI was the \u201clargest\u201d political party of Pakistan and Imran was Pakistan\u2019s most popular leader.<\/p>\n \u201cThe PM should know that any election conducted without the involvement of Imran Khan or PTI will be unconstitutional, illegal and immoral which the people will never accept,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The party further demanded that PM Kakar would provide an explanation ofr his statement immediately and \u201cdissociate his government from the heinous plans of integration and segregation\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has said \u201cfair\u201d elections were possible without PTI Chairman Imran Khan, who is currently incarcerated in a graft case, and his party leaders jailed following violent riots in the country on May 9. However, the premier also stated that thousands of PTI members, who were not a part of \u201cunlawful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/24190533010602e.jpg?r=190559","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}PTI says polls without Imran \u2018unacceptable\u2019<\/h2>\n