ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – Former PML-N stalwarts Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Miftah Ismail on Saturday launched Awam Pakistan – a new political party – with a promise to change the obsolete system which, they said, serves the elite only, and prescribed supremacy of the constitution as the sole remedy to all the ills faced by the country.
Miftah, who served as finance minister twice in the PML-N government, blasted the incumbent government by equating it with the East India Company and said middle class was being crushed, as he criticised the recent tax rate hike for the salaried classes, while also noting that 100 million people had been pushed below the poverty line.
He called for providing “economic opportunity for all” and said common people must join politics, as they were not allowed to progress.
The country could not be managed under the existing system, as it failed to protect the people, said the former PML-N leader who started to distance himself from the PML-N top leadership after Ishaq Dar replaced him as finance minister during the 16-month long PDM stint in government.
The current system cannot work. It has to be changed, said Miftah in his address at the launching ceremony of the latest addition to a long list of political parties in Pakistan.
Describing provision of health and education services as a state responsibility, the former finance minister said the latest budget reflected the rulers’ mindset, adding that the current system was meant to trap the masses.
As Miftah branded the existing state system as dual-faced, he said the newly-launched party would follow merit within its structure.
ENTERING POWER CORRIDORS ISN’T A PRIORITY
Fromer prime minister Abbasi also spoke on the occasion and said there was neither political nor economic stability in the country., adding that the rulers were least cared about the people and the country.
Exports are on a decline, inflation is on the rise, he said and added that how a country cold move forward where even milk had been taxed.
Citing the fact that millions of children are out-of-school in Pakistan, Abbasi – who was preferred by PML-N President Nawaz Sharif over Shehbaz Sharif to assume the prime minister’s office in 2017 – said no one was talking about the issues faced by Pakistan and their solutions.
Abbasi said those in government were worried about only staying in power and that grabbing the government at every cost wasn’t Awam Pakistan’s priority.
FOLLOW CONSTITUTION
He said the constitution was considered just a piece of paper and political parties formed as a ready-made product. “Awam Pakistan represents a new vision, it isn’t a precooked meal.”
Criticising the establishment’s role in politics, Abbasi remarked that one must try once to run Pakistan on the basis of constitution.
"Pakistan is a country where a person holding a constitutional office bulldozes the constitution on a daily basis,” he said and added that every unconstitutional act had produced corrupt politicians.
“It isn’t possible that you keep violating the constitution and the country continues to march forward,” Abbasi said and added that the products of Form-47 could not give anything to Pakistan.