Pakistan’s outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s meeting with the leader of the opposition Raja Riaz is set to take place on August 10, as the process to appoint a caretaker PM enters its final phase.
The eagerly anticipated meeting was set to begin on August 9 at 4:00 pm earlier, however later got postponed and will now take place today.
“The Prime Minister’s Office has contacted Raja Riaz and the meeting between him and PM Shehbaz Sharif has been fixed at 2:30 pm today,” ARY News reported citing sources.
This comes as Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly on August 9, night after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif forwarded a summary to President Dr Arif Alvi for dissolution of the lower house of the Parliament.
Pakistan’s leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Raja Riaz said that the previous Government’s wrong decisions had brought the country to the brink of default.
Raja Riaz said that the sitting parliamentarians took a wise decision by removing the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Government through a no-confidence motion. He said that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has stopped the country’s economic collapse.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on August 9 called his 16-month-long tenure as the “most difficult” test of his life, Pakistan-based Dawn reported.
Lashing out at former Pakistan PM Imran Khan and his dispensation, Shehbaz Sharif said his government had to “bear the burden of the previous government’s failure and negligence”.
In his farewell speech at the National Assembly (NA) on August 9, Shehbaz Sharif said, “I never had to go through such a difficult test before in my 38-year-long [political] career as the country was mired in a severe economic crisis, oil prices remained high and there was political chaos,” according to Dawn.
In his speech, Sharif said his government faced several challenges and difficulties during his 16-month-long tenure. He added, “We had to bear the burden of the previous government’s failure and negligence”.
(with inputs from ANI)
