Free elections only solution to present crisis: speakers

The speakers foresee no easy way out to the current situation amid deepening crisis in the country except holding of free and fair elections by ensuring level-playing field to all political parties in the coming elections.
Political and defence analyst Lieutenant General (Retd) Asad Durrani, president, National Party, Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, and Executive Director of Centre for Civic Education Zafarullah Khan spoke at a seminar on "Deepening political crisis: causes and way out" organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), here on Monday.
Zafarullah Khan said, "The nation badly needs a constitutional review if not a new, in order to purify it from the sections and amendments added to it under the doctrine of necessity". He said that the myth of sustainable democracy had shattered and there was a need of forging grand reconciliation with an assurance of free and fair elections for the safety of our country.
He said, "We are far away from true political system and should go to it as early as possible. For this we have to resolve political issues within the political spheres instead of taking other options." Asad Durrani said that current crisis was not a political but a state crisis. The ongoing military versus militants situation in Waziristan, Balochistan issue, May 12 incidents in Karachi and the recent suicide attacks in Rawalpindi and Tarbela were dangerous happenings for the security and integrity of the country, he observed.
He deplored that the government had not considered solutions to the crisis and instead launched military operations under external pressure without applying other options. He cautioned that the use of force against own people always spread the violence as it spilled over from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from tribal areas to settled areas and now onwards.
Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch ruling out the possibility of peaceful transition and fearing a real confrontation in the ongoing political crisis hoped that will of the people and power of the street would finally prevail over the might of the state.
He said that Pakistan had reached its defining moments where it had become extremely difficult for the masses to remain subservient to the interests of establishment.
Dr Baloch said that for the first time in the history of Pakistan judiciary, media, intelligentsia and people of Pakistan are playing an assertive role thus posing a real challenge to the deep-rooted hegemony of establishment and its political allies.