Opposition parties convince Fazl-led MMA to enter parliament
Parties mull entering parliament as grand opposition alliance.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Opposition parties on Monday were discussing to form a grand opposition alliance after People’s Party (PPP) and PML-N succeeded in convincing Maulana Fazlur Rehman-led MMA to join parliament.
Senior leadership of the PML-N, PPP, Awami National Party (ANP) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) met in Islamabad to discuss ways and means to form governments in the centre and Punjab.
The meeting, chaired by PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, also discussed the prevailing political situation in the country and way forward to effectively address their grave concern of massive rigging.
Fazl conceded that raising issues in parliament could prove beneficial for the alliance but insisted that opposition parties should continue with their strategy on numbers game .
He said mandate of the nation was stolen in the general election and the coalition will raise this issue at every forum.
Read more: Multi-party conference rejects election results
Monday s meeting was the second such interaction between leadership of the opposition parties after the first multi-party conference rejected election results and demanded re-elections.
ANP s Asfandyar Wali and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman were not in favour of taking oath in parliament.
"We think a robbery has been committed," Maulana Fazalur Rehman, head of the religious Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party, told reporters.
"We will run a movement for the holding of elections again. There will be protests... We will not allow democracy to be taken hostage by the establishment," he said.
But PML-N, while turning down MMA leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s proposal, termed it harmful to the democratic process and suggested that the party should instead register protest against alleged rigging in the polls.
Read more: MQM-P decides against joining conference
Among those absent from the meeting was the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), whose leadership decided against participating after a telephonic interaction between MQM-P’s Khalid Maqbool and PTI leader Jahangir Tareen took place on Friday.
According to sources, Farooq Sattar and Naveed Jamil had arrived in Islamabad to attend the APC but decided against it after invitation from the PTI for a potential alliance.
Read more: PTI tops NA with 116 seats
According to final results issued by the ECP, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party won 116 of the 270 National Assembly seats, emerging as the largest political party in the country. The PML-N grabbed 64 seats, while the PPP became the second runner-up with 43 National Assembly seats.
Similarly, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) secured 12 seats and Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Balochistan National Party, Mutahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan, and Balochistan Awami Party secured four, three, six, and four seats respectively.
Read more: Battle for Punjab escalates
PTI on Monday claimed a boost in the Punjab province, once the core power base of the former ruling PML-N party, after it announced that many of the independent candidates have joined the party.
At least 149 seats are required to form government in Punjab. PML-N had secured 129 seats and PTI had taken 123 seats in recently held general elections. However, the count for PTI escalated to 142 after its leaders managed to convince the independent MPAs-elect.
On Wednesday, millions of Pakistanis voted to elect a new government and prime minister in a peaceful elections held in free, fair and transparent manner.
Around 800,000 police and military forces were stationed at more than 85,000 polling stations across the country as the voting took place.
Wednesday’s election was only the second democratic transition of power in Pakistan’s 70-year coup-studded history.
Pakistan is a country of approximately 207 million people, out of which the number of registered voters are about 106 million.
The voting for the Pakistan election, which took place between 8:00 am local time (8:30 am IST) and 6:00 pm (6:30 pm IST), saw more than 3,000 candidates contesting for 272 general seats of the National Assembly, while some 8,000 candidates ran for 577 general seats of the four provincial assemblies - Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.
