Imran tells PTI lawmakers to prepare for polls

By Muhammad JuniadPublished On 05 Jan 2023

The former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Saturday told his elected lawmakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to prepare for elections even as he remained tight-lipped on when he would dissolve the assemblies.

Addressing lawmakers via video link from his Zaman Town mansion in Lahore, Imran lamented that the ruling coalition had rebuffed his offer for talks.

“My offer was in good faith for sake of the nation,” Imran said, referring to how he had invited the government on Friday to hold talks for the next elections.

However, Imran had conditioned those talks and threatened that if the government did not hold talks, he would dissolve the assemblies.

The ruling coalition, however, on Saturday came out and termed conditional talks a ‘nonstarter’, aggressively pushing back by stating that no one in their coalition was willing to hold talks with Imran because they knew he would back out of it, nor were they willing to give him any face-saving.

The coalition had further stated that elections were the need of Imran Khan.

In his speech on Saturday, however, Imran reiterated that the government does not want to hold elections even though their continued reign was damaging the country economically.

“They are preparing to flee the country again,” Imran claimed.

Imran, however, did not issue a date for when he would dissolve the assemblies, and only directed lawmakers to go back into their constituencies and prepare for elections, stating that he had been empowered by the parliamentary parties to decide when to dissolve assemblies.

“If elections are to be held in 66% of the country, the government will be unable to stop general elections,” he said.