Criticising Shehbaz-led govt, Abbasi highlights need for new political party

• Abbasi takes exception to PDM-led government performance.
• Like PTI, PDM also did not take any meaningful decisions, says ex-PM.
• There is a need, space for new political party: former PM.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has criticised the performance of previous Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government, saying that there is need for a new political party in the country.

“The ability to quick decision making was not seen in the Shehbaz-led government as it should have been,” Abbasi said while referring to the previous coalition government led by PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif.

Speaking on the talk show of a local TV channel on Monday, the PML-N leader said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government did not take any decision to resolve the masses' woes. But in the same breath, Abbasi also took exception to the PDM-led government performance saying his party also did not take any meaningful steps to resolve the prevailing issues.

Abbasi there was both a need and space for a new political party in the current scenario. While criticising the PDM government, the ex-prime minister said the past rulers should have stepped down had they felt that former chief of army staff general (retired) Qamar Javed Bajwa had been posing a hindrance to their rule.

The PDM’s regime later had eight to nine months after the retirement of General Bajwa and that was enough time for any government to deliver, he remarked.

He said that the PTI chief during his regime lasting three years and eight months didn’t spend a single penny on any work, but the list of the works accomplished by the PDM’s government was equally empty. “The PDM’s government didn’t take the decisions that should have been taken,” he said.

He said the order given by former chief justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial just before his retirement for restoring the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to its original shape would create problems for the upcoming rulers in delivering the goods. “The little expectation I have from someone to deliver has ended after this decision,” he added.