PTI refuses govt's offer of long-term interim setup

• Asad Qaiser says govt offered them long-term interim setup. 
• Says PTI has rejected the offer. 
• Constitution has no provision for a long-term interim setup, he says.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has refused to accept the government's offer for a long-term interim government set-up, reported The News.

Former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaisar said the government offered the PTI a long-term interim government set-up. However, no extra-constitutional demand will be accepted in any shape, he said.

Asad Qaisar, speaking on Geo News' programme Capital Talk on Thursday, said the PTI is ready to hold talks if the government announces an election date. 

He said that the Constitution has no provision for long-term interim government and that such an extra-constitutional offer must be rejected at all costs. He said that they are ready for talks with the government if it gives an election date.

He said that acceptance of the resignations of PTI lawmakers has become a political issue and is not a constitutional one. He said that the resigned PTI lawmakers had not been getting salaries and other facilities since April.

Qaisar said that they had a detailed meeting with NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Thursday and asked him to accept the resignations forthwith. He said they told the NA speaker that Qasim Suri had accepted the resignations and these were to be sent to the Election Commission. 

The PTI leader said that they had asked the NA speaker whether he had accepted the resignations of 11 lawmakers by calling them one by one. Qaisar said the NA speaker told them that those 11 lawmakers tweeted him about their resignations.

The former NA speaker told him that they had also tweeted Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. He said the government did not want to accept the resignations of PTI MNAs.

Qaisar claimed the government is afraid of holding elections. He said that the government had delayed the local government elections in Islamabad and now it intended to get the local body polls delayed in Sindh too. He said the PDM wanted power whether it could run the country or not. He said the NA speaker had told him that some PTI members asked him not to accept their resignations.

Qaisar said that former MNAs can use the Parliament Lodges until new MNAs are elected. He stated that 11 resigned MNAs' parliamentary seats had been vacated. It is beyond his understanding how the month of January would pass in the present economic condition.