Everything is set for Pakistan’s opposition coalition to hold its first public meeting on Friday night to start a series of agitations aimed at forcing Prime Minister Imran Khan out of the government.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the head of Jamiat-Ulema Islam (F), who also heads the 11-party Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), will lead a rally from Lahore to Gujranwala ahead of the public meeting, which will be attended by leaders of nearly all opposition political parties.
PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif will also attend the meeting. In an attempt to pressure the opposition, the government through its anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Office (NAB), issued arrest warrants for former President Asif Ali Zardari in a corruption case on Thursday. Zardari is currently in the Karachi hospital. The party’s leader, Bilawal Bhutto, commented that these were “common tactics used to pressure the opposition.”
For its part, the government has threatened to shut down parts of the country, citing the rise in coronavirus cases. Planning Minister Asad Umar said Thursday that there are “unmistakable signs of the increase in the crown” in the country and that the government may have to take “restrictive actions” to stem the spread, which will have “negative effects” on people’s livelihoods. .
Umar said in a series of tweets that the national positivity of Covid-19 cases was 2.37% on Wednesday, the highest in more than 50 days. The minister, who also oversees Pakistan’s response to the pandemic, said 11 virus deaths have been reported on average during the first four days of this week, the highest since Aug. 10.
Despite the onset of winter, analysts say the political temperature had started to rise in Pakistan. One expert said that if opposition parties managed to hold successive rallies and meetings in Pakistan next week and may draw large crowds, “the Imran Khan government is in real danger.”
Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif led the charge against Prime Minister Imran Khan in September, when he told an All Party Conference that he had nothing to do with Khan, who was a selected prime minister and more to ask those who selected him, an indication of the country’s powerful military leadership.
Describing it as a “state above state”, Sharif had accused the army of interfering in Pakistani politics and sabotaging democracy and democratic institutions.
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