Akhtar Mengal expresses strong reservations over caretaker PM

Outgoing PM Shehbaz congratulates Kakar on becoming caretaker premier

LAHORE  – Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the seasoned Baloch nationalist leader, isn’t happy with the appointment of Anwaarul Haq Kakar as the caretaker prime minister as he wrote a letter to Nawaz Sharif – the PML-N supremo – saying that force was being used to solve Balochistan’s problems instead of finding a political solution.

Mengal, the chief of his own faction of Balochistan Nationalist Party (BNP), said his letter was a continuation of the one he had written on July 22, 2022 and, unfortunately, the issues mentioned back then were still persisting.

Expressing his dismay, the BNP-M head said notwithstanding the situation being faced in Balochistan, it was a surprise that they [Nawaz and others] had been unable to learn from what had they faced. A solution to the current problems was being found in consultation with the establishment, instead of politicians, he remarked.

According to Mengal, they still remember the injustices of Gen Ayub Khan to Gen Pervez Musharraf, but his [Nawaz’s] party has forgotten the conspiracies hatched and unconstitutional acts committed by Gen Musharraf and Gen Bajwa so quickly.

Making the undemocratic forces more powerful by weakening the democratic institutions will prove to be the last nail in the coffin of democracy, Mengal warned.

He also told Nawaz that the legislations introduced against the human rights concept would ultimately be used against them [PML-N] in future as they had not considered the Baloch people as a human.

The BNP-M chief said the nomination of such a person meant that the doors leading them to politics had been shut and the similar decisions had created the gulf between the two sides.

Earlier,

Outgoing prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has congratulated Senator Anwaarul Haq Kakar on becoming the caretaker prime minister,

Preparations for the oath-taking ceremony of Anwaar-ul-Haq on August 14 are underway.

President Arif Alvi had appointed Senator Anwaarul Haq Kakar from Balochistan as the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan, the consensus nomination of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Opposition leader Raja Riaz.

President Alvi had approved Kakar’s appointment under Section 224-1A of the Constitution. Kakar, co-founder of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), will be the eighth interim prime minister of Pakistan.

Following the nomination of Anwaarul Haq Kakar as the caretaker prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, the outgoing premier, left the PM House in Islamabad and headed for Lahore on Saturday last.

He also held a farewell meeting with the staff of the Prime Minister’s house.