Achakzai challenges the PTI’s dealings with the’mandate-less’ government.

As crucial talks between the government and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf enter the third round, Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai, whose party is an ally of the PTI, has raised concerns about the former ruling party’s negotiations with a government that, according to him, lacks a “legitimate mandate”.

“What is the point of negotiating with a government that does not have a legitimate mandate?” Achakzai remarked this while speaking to journalists in Islamabad on Friday with Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) Chairman Allama Raja Nasir Abbas.

The declaration comes a day after the besieged former ruling party and the government had a second round of discussion, which National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq described as friendly.

During the discussion, the PTI negotiation team requested regular meetings with party founder Imran Khan to complete the “charter of demands”. While the PTI has been loud about its main requests — the release of political detainees and a judicial investigation into the events of the May 9, 2023 and November 26 crackdowns — it was unable to communicate these demands to the government committee in writing.

The Imran Khan-founded party has already issued an ultimatum that discussions must complete by the end of this month.

The negotiations came after the previous ruling party threatened to launch a civil disobedience action if their demands were not satisfied. Imran Khan, the jailed PTI founder, called on his followers last month to commence the anti-government action by withholding remittances in the first phase.

Speaking to the media today, the PKMAP chairman stated that they would pray for the success of the discussions, but “in such cases, prayers are not accepted.”

He called Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “a friend” and asserted that the present premier was prepared to become PM under then-President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf. He claimed that Nawaz Sharif bravely resisted Shahbaz, but that the former had now “backed down”.

Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, whose party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), is an ally of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at the Centre, expressed scepticism about the ongoing government-PTI talks, claiming that nothing could be seen to come out of them.
Speaking to media in Peshawar, Kundi stated that discussions were the only way out of the long-standing challenges, and that he did not see the PTI receiving an NRO-style arrangement.