PPP urges ECP to announce election date immediately

• Bilawal read a resolution after two-day meeting of CEC.
• PPP urged ECP to announce election date immediately.
• It urged to provide level-playing political field to the party.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) immediately announce the election date and schedule and provide a level-playing field to the political party.

Addressing a press conference after the party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC), PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari read out the resolution passed by the party.

The resolution stated that the decision was taken after the CEC had an “extensive discussion on constitutional matters including the urgent need for dampening down a cycle of chronic political instability”. The PPP said the party believes that this cycle would only settle down with the announcement of an election date and schedule.

“The party’s constitutional lawyers also briefed the leadership on the responsibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan to announce an election date and schedule immediately as the constitution required,” said Bilawal.

The PPP’s CEC also unanimously agreed that relief should be provided to the people from “spiralling inflation, unemployment and poverty as well as, electricity, utility bills, and petrol prices”. However, it added that this should not be done by undertaking “irresponsible” macroeconomic actions which would “destabilise” Pakistan’s multilateral commitment.

The PPP leadership was also briefed on the riverine floods in Kasur, Okara, Vehari, Bahawalnagar, Pakpattan, Lodhran and Bahawalpur. It called for the affected areas to be declared disaster-hit and the dispensation of emergency cash under the Benazir Income Support Programme.

Furthermore, the PPP expressed solidarity with the Christian community affected by the Jaranwala violence. The PPP’s top decision-making body also expressed concern regarding rising terrorism and law and order situation.

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Speaking to media after reading the resolution, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari claimed that PML-N faced consequences in the 2018 elections for conspiring against his party in the 2013 polls.

“A conspiracy was made to keep out the party representing the underprivileged class of Punjab,” he said. “In 2013, the PPP was expelled from Punjab in an undemocratic manner. Later this party [PML-N] itself suffered due to this conspiracy in Punjab.”

The PPP chairman said no one should assume that the PPP has confined itself to a single province.  “The Peoples Party is the party that was born in Punjab. the Peoples Party is present everywhere be it Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar or Karachi,” Bilawal said.

He also said that the CEC has empowered  Asif Ali Zardari to take up the issue of a lack of a “level playing field in the country” for political parties at appropriate forums.

To a question about the Supreme Court’s verdict on NAB amendments, Bilawal said his party was expecting the decision. He added that his party had seen multiple corruption cases and is ready to face them again.

The CEC meeting was attended by former president Asif Ali Zardari, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Syed Khursheed Shah, Syed Murad Ali Shah, Farooq H Naek, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Rana Farooq Saeed Khan, Syed Hassan Murtaza, Faisal Karim Kundi, Shazia Marri and others.

However, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and Sardar Latif Khan Khosa did not attend the meeting after being at odds with the party leadership over their support to former prime minister Imran Khan in his legal troubles.