Pak govt, Opposition to meet again on Friday for second round of talks to end deadlock over holding elections

After much bickering and dithering, Pakistan's political leaders on Thursday held talks to end the deadlock over holding elections in the country and decided to continue the parleys on Friday to resolve the issue.

The government and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the main opposition party led by Imran Khan, have been wrangling over the issue of whether to hold elections on the same date in the country or first go for polls in the provinces of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa only.

The two sides sat together to discuss the issue on Thursday.

The first round of the talks was held in the Parliament House's Committee Room Number 3 and the parleys went on for two hours. Sources said that the talks were held in a good atmosphere and both sides put forward their respective stance.

Yusuf Raza Gilani, a key member of the government negotiating team, told the media after the first round that the talks would resume on Friday. He said that the PTI would present demands and the coalition partners of the government would be apprised about the demands.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who also attended the first round as part of the official team, said it had been principally decided that matters would be resolved within the Constitution.

According to sources, the PTI asked the government to dissolve the National Assembly in July to pave the way for holding polls in the entire country on the same date.

The assembly is completing its five-year term on August 13 but its dissolution a few weeks before the end of term would give a kind of face-saving to Imran Khan who has been demanding snap polls since April 2022 when he was voted out of power.

Earlier, the Express Tribune newspaper reported that the government nominated senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Finance Minister Dar, Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, Law Minister Azam Tarar, and Ayaz Sadiq and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leaders Yusuf Raza Gilani and Naveed Qamar as members of the committee for talks.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Kishwar Zehra was also a part of the government-nominated committee.

PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Barrister Ali Zafar and senior leader Fawad Chaudhary represented their party in the talks.

Importantly, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), the ley government ally and coalition partner, skipped the meeting.

Speaking to the media ahead of the talks, Qureshi said that the ''one-point agenda of the talks was elections''.

Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his address to parliament also said that the two sides would discuss the date for holding elections in the entire country.

The talks began following the invitation by Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to the rival groups to come forward for parleys to end the ongoing unrest and uncertainty in the country.

The Supreme Court had also asked the government and the PTI to sit together for talks but the advice was not heeded to and the court in its hearing of a case on Thursday observed that it would not push them for talks.

Though it is not clear how long the negotiations would go on, time is limited as the Supreme Court had already given May 14 for elections in Punjab and the two sides should agree sooner on a new date to postpone the Punjab polls. The PTI is determined to press for polls in the provincial legislatures, but the government maintains its stance on simultaneous elections across the country.

The National Assembly will complete its five-year term in August this year. According to the Constitution, elections shall be held within 90 days after the dissolution of the lower house. This means that the election must be held by mid-October. The last general election was held in July 2018.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)