The president of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa section (KP), President Junaid Akbar, warned of a national campaign against the power coalition.
Addressing a local television news channel, Akbar said that the opposition’s desire to negotiate was wrongly interpreted as a sign of weakness. His remarks occurred after PTI jumped the fourth round of interviews with the coalition government led by the Muslim League of Pakistan (PML-N) on Tuesday on Tuesday, effectively blocking the negotiation process.
PTI and the power alliance launched talks in December from last year to reduce political temperature in the country. However, the dialogue process derailed while PTI accused the government of not having trained judicial commissions to investigate on May 9, 2023, the demonstrations and the repression of PTI demonstrators in Islamabad on November 26, 2024.
Akbar, who was recently elected president of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), admitted that if PTI was aimed at operating the negotiations, the current trajectory suggested a dead end.
He confirmed PTI’s intention to abandon negotiations in favor of street demonstrations. “Yes, certainly,” he said when asked if the party was now looking for solutions in the streets.
He announced a series of protest plans, including district demonstrations on February 8 against the alleged electoral rigging and a large-scale demonstration at the D-CHOWK of Islamabad.
The head of the PTI stressed that this time, the party would not engage in negotiations during its street demonstrations. By referring to significant changes within PTI, he revealed that the “homeopathic leadership” of the party would be replaced by rigids after a reorganization scheduled for May.
He also announced his intention to reorganize the provincial cabinet, with two new members who should join the team of chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.
Akbar accused the federal government of having attempted to create divisions within PTI and forcing party members to change loyalty. “We know who is in contact with whom,” he said, adding that efforts to destabilize the party had failed.
The PTI chief also said that those who left the party were originally joined under external directives. Akbar expressed its optimism about the release of the founder of PTI, Imran Khan, this year.
