Opposition unites online to fight coronavirus

LAHORE: In a first, Pakistan’s opposition parties held an online conference on Tuesday to devise a strategy to help the government tackle the situation that has resulted from the spread of the deadly coronavirus in the country.
The meeting was held on a web application, Zoom, as a lockdown was imposed across the country last night to deal with the pandemic.
The conference, which lasted for over two hours, was attended by ten political leaders, including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif, Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, senior PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) representative Maulana Ghafoor Haideri, Chief of Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, President of National Party Hasil Khan Bizenjo, senior Awami National Party (ANP) leader Mian Iftikhar Ahmed and leader of Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Usman Khan Kakar.
Other politicians who joined the meeting belonged to parties who are allies of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. These included Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Sardar Akhtar Mengal of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M).
During the sit-down, the leader of the opposition, Shehbaz Sharif, read out a draft of recommendations that he had prepared in consultation with his party to fight the virus. The draft was also presented earlier in a news conference by Sharif.
The proposals included asking the government to cut petrol prices by Rs 70 in order to provide relief to the masses, increase the salaries of doctors in the country and to slash interest rates further.
“Mr. Shehbaz Sharif asked the opposition leaders to endorse his plan,” PML-N’s spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb told Arab News.
Separately, Aurangzeb added, the politicians agreed to prepare a detailed joint resolution, or a national action plan, which would identify lapses on the part of the ruling party in handling the crisis. The government, she went on, took too long to lock down the country and to procure personal protection equipment for doctors.
“We, the opposition, only want to guide the government in these times,” she said.
When asked if the leader of the opposition will reach out to the prime minister directly, the PML-N leader explained that this “was still an evolving discussion” and the future APCs would decide it.
A tweet posted on the PML-N official account quoted Shehbaz Sharif as appreciating the other politicians for uniting in the wider interest of the country and for putting politics aside.
“This is like the Third World War,” he said. “In this war, on one side is the entire world and on the other is the coronavirus.”

Also in the APC, leaders from the PPP, said Aurangzeb, expressed their concern about the federal government not helping the province of Sindh, where the PPP is in power, to fight the virus.
The government, they complained, did not provide enough test kits to the province, which is has to date reported the highest number of confirmed cases in Pakistan.