Sanaullah: PML-N prepared for negotiations with “minus May 9 PTI leadership”

Significantly, senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Rana Sanaullah announced on Thursday that his party was prepared to negotiate for the nation’s economic recovery with PTI leaders who were not engaged in the May 9 riots.

As the nation approaches the general elections, the PML-N leader made these comments in a conversation with reporters in Lahore.

Following the arrest of the ousted prime minister Imran Khan in connection with the £190 million settlement case, rioting broke out nearly nationwide on May 9. A large number of PTI employees and executives were imprisoned due to their involvement in acts of violence and assaults on military sites.

The General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi and Jinnah House, among other civil and military buildings, were targeted by the miscreants during the riots. The protestors were to be tried under the Army Act after the military dubbed May 9th “Black Day”.

The PTI has also, in an unprecedented step, announced the creation of a “political engagement committee” to engage with opposition parties in advance of the next elections.

Senators Ali Zafar, Dr. Humayun Mohmand, Ali Muhammad Khan, Ali Asghar Khan, and Raoof Hasan are among the five members of the committee. They read the party notification issued on its official X account, which was formerly known as Twitter.

Speaking with reporters, Sanaullah asserted that Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chair of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has the authority to obstruct “Lahore’s prime minister” and make way for a premier from Larkana.

The head of the PML-N expressed hope that the people will reach a consensus on who would be the next prime minister.

His comments coincided with an increasingly heated rhetorical exchange between the PPP and PML-N, two erstwhile allies in the previous coalition government led by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), following the announcement by the Election Commission of Pakistan that elections would take place on February 8, 2024.

After the PDM-led coalition government concluded its term in August and the PPP and PML-N clashed over election-related matters, the romance between the two former allies came to an end.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari blamed the PML-N in September for not allowing equal opportunities. He made a sly jab at the PML-N, adding that it’s “really a weird” thing that they know the election date, without identifying them.

On November 6, Zardari expressed his confidence that his son Bilawal would emerge victorious from the country’s general elections, which would be held on February 8 of next year.

The PML-N bastion of “Lahore” is where Bilawal stated his wish that the future prime minister of the nation would not come from.

Zardari made a jab at PML-N chief Nawaz on Tuesday, stating that he was obligated by his employees to stay in the country, in reference to Nawaz’s October 21 return from a four-year self-imposed exile in London.

Zardari went on, “What will I say to my worker when I look him in the eye?” He went on to say that regardless of other people’s political views, his party pursues its own agenda.

On the other hand, the PML-N and MQM-P resolved to run together in the 2018 general elections in an effort to challenge the PPP in Sindh.

In an interview with the media, the head of the PML-N stated that Nawaz may run in the next general or by-election without facing any legal obstacles.