Pakistanis fight against the 'dictatorial' regime

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is facing growing criticism from within the country for ignoring the huge economic crisis at home and, at the same time, failing miserably to maintain friendly relations with the Arab world.

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, a leading voice of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) party, claimed that the ruling government has failed terribly and its foreign policy is flawed.

"The unwarranted comments made by the Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi has done a lot of damage to the relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In fact, all the policies of this government are flawed," Haideri said during a rally.

The leader cited the example of his party chief and firebrand cleric-turned-politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman who has single-handedly led a strong fight against Imran Khan-led government.

"He (Rehman) had forged a strong all-party opposition front against this government, last year. However, the movement lost momentum after some time as some other big parties chose to disengage. Let's be clear that even the people who voted for this government are now completely against them. Look at the state of the economy, the rising inflation, it is difficult for a poor man to survive now. This government has no right to stay in power," he added.

<img class="wp-image-10222 size-full" src="https://indianarrative.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/420e03a1b3df1cb9fdf31139db872e9b.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /> Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F) Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman during a rally (IANS)

The JUI-F chief, while addressing a rally in Peshawar a few days ago, too had said that his party is determined to establish the supremacy of the law and constitution in the country and vowed to continue his fight against what he termed a "dictatorial" regime.

"We have been fighting against dictatorial attitudes and will continue to fight against them. If Pakistan is to survive, these leaders must go. Pakistan can no longer function under the incumbent government. Yesterday, we were thinking about how to take Srinagar, and today we are thinking about how to save Muzaffarabad. We have fallen out of favour with the world just because we insist on upholding Islamic principles," Pakistan's leading daily The News International quoted Maulana Fazlur Rehman as saying.

Rehman had last November led the 'Azadi March' in Pakistan demanding PM Khan's resignation, accusing him of rigging the 2018 general elections.

<img class="wp-image-10225 size-full" src="https://indianarrative.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/23a4f2e252e35fd6520a25d64d5cbf6b.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /> Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa (IANS)

Even as the PM and his ministers are busy highlighting their achievements over the past two years, the opposition is leaving no stone unturned to nail their lies.

"2 years in power & @ImranKhanPTI has given us the worst economy in our country’s history, foreign policy failures from Kashmir to Saudi, democracy & human rights suffering , unemployment at an all time high, transparency international has said corruPTIon is higher than before," tweeted Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) who is also the head of the parliamentary committee on human rights.

Shehbaz Sharif, Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly and President of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), said that the two years of PTI government have been a huge disaster.

"People continue to pay a heavy price for this failed experiment in political engineering. In two years of PTI government: GDP growth rate registered a massive decline from +5.8% in 2018 to -0.45% in 2020, rendering millions of people jobless and pushing many more below the poverty line. Prices of sugar, wheat and medicines almost doubled. Per capita income went down steeply. Government's failure in critical areas of foreign policy could not be starker. Work on CPEC was slowed down for a year. Relationship with key allies such as Saudi Arabia was subjected to controversy," he said in a series of tweets.

Snubbed by Saudi Arabia, Imran Khan had in a recent interview said that Pakistan's future is tied with China. Foreign Minister Qureshi too had flown to Beijing and has held meetings with his Chinese counterpart over the last two days. But the growing dependency on China, complete failure of foreign policy, constantly pushing a false narrative on Kashmir and a huge resentment within the country over unemployment and economy, means that the former World Cup-winning skipper is finding it extremely difficult to survive on a fast deteriorating wicket..