ISLAMABAD: Awaam Pakistan Party President and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said Pakistan cannot achieve national progress without constitutional supremacy, rule of law, transparent governance and political stability.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club Islamabad, Abbasi said the government had no effective economic plan except raising taxes and relying on borrowing. He said increasing public expenditure, corruption, unemployment and political uncertainty had pushed the country into a serious crisis.<\/p>\n
He was accompanied by Central Vice President Chaudhry Inam Zafar, Central Vice President Fatima Atif, Party Convener Sarfraz Afzal and other party leaders.<\/p>\n
Abbasi said the country must move away from political confrontation and politics of revenge, and instead build a way forward on constitutional supremacy, rule of law, transparent governance and national consensus.<\/p>\n
The former prime minister said that during the last four years, the real income and purchasing power of citizens had fallen sharply, while the per capita tax burden had almost doubled. He said unemployment had reached its highest level in 21 years, poverty was increasing, and the youth were unable to find employment according to their education and skills.<\/p>\n
He said the national debt had risen from around Rs45 trillion to Rs85 trillion, while investment had dropped to its lowest level in decades. He added that high prices of electricity, gas, petrol and diesel, along with uncertainty in the tax system, had badly damaged business activity.<\/p>\n
Criticising the government\u2019s agriculture policies, Abbasi said wrong decisions had harmed farmers, increased flour prices and compelled Pakistan to import wheat. He said the government\u2019s economic policies had failed to provide relief to the people.<\/p>\n
Abbasi maintained that constitutional supremacy, rule of law, meaningful reforms, transparent governance and political stability were essential for economic recovery. He called for a broad political dialogue among the government, opposition, judiciary, establishment and other national institutions.<\/p>\n
He said fresh elections alone would not resolve the country\u2019s problems, adding that national consensus and serious reforms were necessary to address the continuing economic and political crises.<\/p>\n
Concluding his press conference, Abbasi said coercion, political victimisation and division could not solve Pakistan\u2019s challenges. He called for an end to political tensions, demanded that political leaders be allowed to move freely and interact with the public, and urged all political forces to work together in the national interest to steer the country out of crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi says Pakistan needs constitutional supremacy, rule of law, transparent governance, reforms and national consensus to overcome its crises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}