Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah on Friday said the now-banned religious party Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) was “created in an attempt to cut into the PMLN’s vote bank”.
Yesterday the federal cabinet banned the religious political party. In the 2018 general election, political analysts estimated that the TLP had cost the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at least 15 hotly contested national seats across Pakistan. The party polled nearly 2.2 million votes, mostly from Punjab and Karachi, during the elections.
Earlier today, the Interior Ministry notified a ban on the TLP, saying the federal government had “reasonable grounds” to believe the religious political party was connected to terrorism, after nationwide TLP protests in Gaza claimed the lives of several protesters and police officers and paralyzed major highways and urban roads from Karachi to Islamabad.
speaking in Geographic news show ‘Naya Pakistan’, Rana Sanaullah, in response to a question about the future of the TLP as a political party and whether it remained an option to be used against rival political parties, agreed that the TLP had been used in the past for that purpose and went on to joke that “it was created to steal votes from the PML-N vote bank”.
However, the Prime Minister’s advisor denied that the TLP’s current fate had anything to do with its previous use as a proxy group, stating that “it was up to the federal cabinet to decide on any dissolution plan.”
“I am not in a position to speak on behalf of the cabinet,” he said, expressing optimism that a decision to dissolve the party will be made.
When asked if the government was open to negotiating with the now-banned group if it offered any guarantees, citing the TLP ban in 2021 and its subsequent lifting, Sanaullah responded by saying: “I think there cannot be any guarantees after the guarantees that were given earlier have already been violated.”
He highlighted that “any party, whether political, religious or academic, involved in terrorist activities can be banned under clause 11b of the Anti-Terrorism Law.”
In response to a question on whether the TLP can still participate in elections as a political party, the Prime Minister’s aide said: “It is very difficult for a party to function while it is banned under the ATA,” and maintained that “the party cannot participate in any election while it is still banned under the ATA.”
Detailing the next steps after the ban, he said: “Now that the government has notified the ban, within the next three days, all these grounds will be sent to TLP for review, after which it will have 30 days to file an appeal in a higher court through writ jurisdiction.”
However, he clarified that the ban on the party “is within the review period and also during the appeal period,” highlighting that “there is no room to accommodate the party.”
On the issue of possible dissolution, he expanded that “here the first step is the review and then the appeal.”
“How will a party that has now been banned act as a political party? If its offices and assets have been sealed, how will it function?”
According to analysts, the final decision to ban a political party rests with the Supreme Court, according to the Constitution.
“The federal government shall, within 15 days of such declaration, refer the matter to the Supreme Court, whose decision on such referral shall be final,” according to Article 17(2) of the Constitution.
The government can also invoke Article 212 of the Electoral Law of 2017 to request the dissolution of a political party. Any declaration is subject to a decision by the Supreme Court.
The TLP was formed in 2015 out of a protest campaign seeking the release of Mumtaz Qadri, a police officer who had murdered former Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011 over his calls to reform blasphemy laws and free Asia Bibi, who had been accused of blasphemy. Qadri was later executed.
The group founded a political party at Qadri’s funeral in 2016, which was attended by thousands of people.
