Pak PM Shehbaz starts consultations with allied parties on caretaker setup selection: Senior PPP leader

Islamabad, Jul 17 (PTI) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has started consultations with allied parties on the selection of an interim administration, a senior Pakistan Peoples Party leader said on Monday, indicating that the government was planning to dissolve the National Assembly before the completion of its tenure in mid-August.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Qamar Zaman Kaira made the remark while speaking on a Geo News programme, a day after Sharif announced that his government would hand over power to a caretaker setup before the completion of its tenure next month.

He said that the prime minister would consult with the opposition leader after deliberations with coalition partners, the Geo News reported.

Kaira’s remarks came a day after Shehbaz made the announcement indicating that the National Assembly would be dissolved days before the completion of its tenure to face the general election in November.

“Our government will complete its term next month. We will hopefully go before the tenure’s completion, and the new interim government will take over,” the premier said while addressing a laptop distribution ceremony in Sialkot city in Punjab province.

Under the Constitution, polls are to be held within 60 days if the National Assembly completes its term. But if the assembly is dissolved prematurely, even by a day, it would give the government 90 days to conduct elections.

The five-year term of the National Assembly commenced under the then-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government of Imran Khan on August 12, 2018, and is set to be completed under the ruling coalition led by Shehbaz.

The senior leader of the PPP headed by Bilawal Zardari-Bhutto also said that political offices could be run only by politicians and demanded that a politician be chosen as the caretaker prime minister, as this is their job.

Asserting that the PM’s Office has many responsibilities, Kaira said, “Political people should be appointed as prime ministers, ministers or chief ministers. These posts should not go to others.”

“If a judge, general, bureaucrat, technocrat, journalist, or any corporate sector employee is appointed to it, it will be a disgrace to the post and cannot work,” he added.

Kaira said the election reforms could be completed in a few days and added that the Election Commission had started the process based on the old census.