Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party will not join hands with rival PML-N or the PPP to form a coalition government and would sit in the Opposition despite having a majority in the newly elected parliament, party leader Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said.
Independent candidates, mostly affiliated with Khan’s PTI, secured the most parliamentary seats in last week’s general election. However, the PTI does not have enough seats in the 266-member National Assembly to form a government on its own.
“We don’t feel comfortable with both (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party) of them. There will be no talks with anyone to make a government or to make a government together with them. It is better to sit in the opposition than to make a government [with them], but we think we have the majority,” Gohar Khan told Dawn News.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced that independent candidates, a majority of them supported by the PTI secured 101 seats, followed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 75 seats, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) getting 54 seats, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) bagging 17 seats. Other parties got 17 seats while the result of one constituency was withheld.
Though the PTI initially claimed to form the government but its chances looked grim from the beginning as at least 169 seats, in the house of 336, were needed to form the government. A total of 266 seats are directly contested while 60 women-reserved seats and 10 minority seats are allocated based on proportional representation to the winning parties. As PTI was not allowed to contest as a single party with a common symbol, it was not qualified to get the reserved seats.
The party hence decided to sit on the opposition benches, leaving the field open for PML-N and PPP as well as others to form a coalition, Gohar said, adding that the PTI would form a strong Opposition.
Gohar also called out all those politicians who switched loyalties in the past, saying they had been rejected outright by the people in the February 8 elections.
He said the party was looking into the matter of the PTI-backed independent Waseem Qadir joining the PML-N led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “The rest of the independent candidates are in touch with us and will stay with us,” he asserted.
He said that Imran Khan had given instructions to form governments at the Centre, KPK, and Punjab provinces.
