Our vote, lives, livelihood, belief aren’t safe: Fazl

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman on Thursday vowed to continue the movement against what he described as the incompetent rulers and said their elders did not teach them slavery, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The incumbent government is incompetent and selected, said Fazl who has been advocating an aggressive approach against the PTI as he didn’t accept 2018 election results and had urged the main opposition parties not to the join the assemblies.

The JUI-F chief said he had been stating openly that the last general elections were rigged. “Enough is enough. There is no room [for further leniency towards the government],” Fazl told his charged followers at a rally in Chitral.

He said, “Neither our lives are safe nor our belief is secured. Our vote, our livelihood, nothing is safe.” 

Fazl delivered this speech as Prime Minister Imran Khan managed to get multiple bills related to FATF (Financial Action Task Force) passed through the Parliament on Wednesday as the JUI-F have been critical of the PML-N and the PPP for supporting the government.

This was made possible only by the fact that several opposition members skipped the session as the anti-government parties enjoyed numerical strength in the Parliament joint session.

In this scenario, PML-N senior leader Khawaja Saad Rafique on Thursday demanded strict action against those opposition parties’ members who skipped voting at the Parliament joint sitting which enabled the government to get approve multiple bills.

All the opposition parties, including the PML-N, would have to take serious notice of the missing National Assembly and Senate members at the time of voting, Saad said.

Before the Wednesday’s session, JUI-F leader Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri had expressed the hope that the two main opposition parties – PML-N and PPP – would not act as a facilitator of the government in getting the FATF-related legislation sail through the Parliament.

Talking to 24NewsHD, Haideri said the bill was a big test for the two parties. “APC is to be held in coming few days. [We] would have to see what these opposition parties do,” he remarked.

Haideri warned that the nature of the APC could change if the PPP and the PML-N supported the government on the bill.

He said the smaller opposition parties have decided to oppose the bill [at the joint sitting] like they had done in the past.

The JUI-F leader also noted that the government did not inform them about the joint session.

He said the country practically didn’t have any government and the President’s House had been turned into an “ordinance factory”.