PM invites opposition leader for talks on Pakistan election commissioner’s appointment
PM invites opposition leader for talks on Pakistan election commissioner’s appointment/node/2603358/pakistan
PM invites opposition leader for talks on Pakistan election commissioner’s appointment
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) meets opposition leader Omar Ayub in Islamabad, Pakistan, on June 26, 2025. (Pakistan National Assmembly/File)
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday wrote a letter to opposition leader Omar Ayub, inviting him to hold consultations regarding the appointment of a new Pakistan chief election commissioner.
Former chief election commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and two other members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from Sindh and Balochistan completed their five-year tenures on Jan. 26 this year. However, they continue to hold office as per Article 215 of the constitution until their replacements are appointed.
As per Pakistan’s constitution, the prime minister shall forward, after consultations with the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, three names for the appointment of the chief election commissioner to a parliamentary committee for hearing and confirmation of any one person.
“In view of the aforesaid, you are invited for a meeting for consultation, in terms of clause (2A) of Article 213 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, in order to finalize three names each for appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Members from Sindh and Balochistan,” a copy of Sharif’s letter to Ayub, seen by Arab News, said.
Raja oversaw Pakistan’s contentious general election last year marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellular networks, suspension of Internet services and delayed results. Ayub’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and other opposition parties alleged the ECP, under Raja, manipulated the results of the polls to facilitate his political rivals.
The ECP strongly rejected the PTI’s allegations while the caretaker government at the time said mobile phone and Internet services were suspended to maintain law and order in the country. Sharif’s government has also rejected the PTI’s allegations and said the polls were free, fair and transparent.
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI has held several protests against the government and demanded it investigate allegations of rigging in the 2024 election, and return its “stolen” mandate.
The government, on the other hand, has urged the PTI to seek legal recourse and avoid taking to the streets in protest.
Talks between the two sides to break political tensions were held earlier this year. However, after a couple of rounds, the PTI pulled out, accusing the government of not fulfilling its demands to form judicial commissions to probe violent protests in May 2023 and November 2024.
The government alleges the violent protests were instigated by the PTI leadership.
ISLAMABAD: The disaster management authority in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province on Wednesday issued new guidelines for the installation of solar systems, citing that over 70 percent of accidents related to solar panels were reported during a thunderstorm last month.
Thunderstorms killed at least 21 people and injured more than 100 others in Punjab late last month as moist currents penetrated upper parts of Pakistan, according to national and provincial disaster management authorities.
Earlier this week, the Punjab Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) issued a fresh alert for rain and strong, dusty winds across the province from June 2 to June 5.
“During the thunderstorm on May 24, there were 124 small and large accidents in Punjab,” PDMA spokesperson Mazhar Hussain told Arab News.
“When this was analyzed, it was revealed that over 70 percent of the accidents have been caused by solar panels or related structures,” he added.
PDMA Director General Irfan Ali Kathia said new guidelines and a regulatory framework were prepared by stakeholders, including the province’s energy department and the local government department.
“These instructions are aligned with the national framework provided by the Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB), and include essential safety protocols, installation standards and the responsibilities of certified installers,” Kathia explained.
According to the guidelines seen by Arab News, the PDMA has directed users to procure the services of AEDB-certified installers to ensure a professional solar system design and so that the panels are properly mounted, sealed and structurally reinforced.
Along with other technical details, the PDMA stresses people to use wind-rated mounting systems attached to mountings by stainless steel nut bolts. The authority directs that these bolts be fastened using stainless steel spring washers.
It also says people should consider windstorm-safe anchors or extra brackets in the province’s regions prone to storms.
“The mountings itself should be properly secured with base/floor to ensure it can withstand windstorms and other climatic vagaries,” the document stated.
Kathia said only professionals approved by the AEDB will be authorized to install solar energy systems. He said this move was aimed at ensuring technical standards were maintained and risks associated with faulty or unregulated installations were reduced.
“In addition, all structures across Punjab that may be vulnerable to future damage are being surveyed by the respective deputy commissioners,” the PDMA official said.
He added strict compliance would be ensured in close coordination with district administrations to avoid such accidents in the future.
Khalil Ahmed, owner of a solar installation company in Punjab’s provincial capital Lahore, supported the PDMA’s decision.
Ahmed said people often hire non-professional installers to save a small amount of money, putting both their systems and safety at risk.
“Ensuring that only AEDB-certified professionals handle solar installations is not just a matter of compliance, it’s a matter of public safety,” he told Arab News.
Proper mounting, structural reinforcement, and weatherproofing are essential to prevent accidents and protect both lives and property, he added.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will travel to Ƶ tomorrow, Thursday, to thank the Kingdom’s leadership for its support to Pakistan during its recent conflict with India, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said.
Ƶ was actively involved in defusing tensions between India and Pakistan as the two countries engaged in four days of intense fighting last month before agreeing to a ceasefire on May 10.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir also paid a daylong visit to Pakistan on May 9, which followed his surprise stop in New Delhi for talks with Indian officials as the fighting continued.
“For your information, we are visiting KSA [Kingdom of Ƶ] tomorrow [Thursday] for 24 hours,” Dar told reporters at a news briefing in Islamabad.
“The prime minister will go tomorrow, and I will also go with him. We will go there to thank them for their solidarity and support.”
Dar, who also serves as Pakistan’s foreign minister, said the Kingdom’s leadership, especially Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, was in touch with Islamabad throughout the conflict.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan engaged in four days of fighting, the worst between them since 1999, last month following weeks of tension after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for being involved in an attack at an Indian-administered Kashmir tourist resort.
Islamabad denied it was involved in the April 22 attack that had killed 26 Indian tourists, calling for a credible, international probe.
After both countries traded missiles, drone strikes, artillery fire and used fighter jets to bomb each other for four days, US President Donald Trump announced on May 10 that Washington had brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
While the ceasefire continues to hold, tensions remain high as India has vowed to hold a decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan in abeyance.
Islamabad has vowed that any attempt to disrupt or divert its flow of water will be considered an “act of war.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday the US had confirmed to Pakistani officials that no F-16 fighter jets of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) were flown or shot down during the four-day conflict with India last month.
Militaries of nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan faced-off in four days of fighting between May 7-10, which saw the use of fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery by both sides before a ceasefire was announced by US President Donald Trump.
In the days that followed, Indian media claimed the Indian Air Force had shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet during the conflict.
“Turned out to be a lie that the F-16 they claimed of shooting down,” Dar said while addressing a press conference.
“It was proved when we approached relevant authorities in America, they confirmed in 24 hours that no F-16 was flown from Pakistan or went down.”
The US has not commented on the Pakistani deputy PM’s remarks.
The use of F-16s in the latest conflict could have raised concerns due to the strict end-use monitoring agreements imposed by the US.
In February 2025, the US had released $397 million for a program aimed at ensuring that Pakistan’s F-16s were used exclusively for counterterrorism operations and not against other nations, particularly India.
The funds will support the Technical Security Team (TST), a group of contractors stationed in Pakistan to oversee the use of F-16s under strict end-use monitoring rules.
According to Pakistan-specific defense and analysis group Quwa, TST has been present in Pakistan since 2019 when the US approved its current deployment with a $125 million support package for the PAF F-16 fleet.
Pakistan in 2019 invited US officials to conduct a count of its F-16 jets after India made a similar claim of shooting down a Pakistani F-16 during a dogfight in the skies that year. According to a Foreign Policy magazine report, the officials had said that all F-16s were present and accounted for.
In 2022, the US government had notified Congress of a proposed $450 million foreign military sale to Pakistan to support the sustainment of the PAF’s F-16 program.
Tensions between Pakistan and India remain high after the two countries agreed to a ceasefire on May 10. Both sides accuse each other of supporting militancy across their respective borders, allegations both governments deny.
KARACHI: Pakistan is facing the flight of capital, with local industrialists shifting their factories to investor-friendly Middle Eastern countries like the United Arab Emirates due to the lack of favorable industrialization policies at home, Kamran Arshad, chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), said on Tuesday.
APTMA represents more than 200 textile millers, which employ the country’s largest industrial workforce of more than 40 million people and account for half of the nation’s total exports. Its top official made the remark during an interview with Arab News just a week ahead of the country’s federal budget that is scheduled to be announced on June 10.
“Pakistani investors are now the second or third largest investors in places like Dubai,” he said during the conversation.
“Yes, there has been a flight of capital,” he continued, adding “had there been curbs and checks and balances on the flight of capital and favorable industrialization policies, the capital would have remained within Pakistan and it would have gone into agriculture and industry.”
Pakistan’s government is trying to turn around the country’s debt-ridden economy by curtailing imports and increasing exports with the help of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) loan program.
The government has emphasized its commitment to creating a more business-friendly environment in recent years, identifying textiles as a central driver in achieving a $60 billion export target by 2029 under its newly unveiled five-year economic framework.
Overall, the country’s exports rose six percent to $27 billion this year through April, but its textile exports declined more than 13 percent between FY22 and FY24 after hitting a record $19.3 billion in FY22.
Arshad maintained this was mainly due to the Export Facilitation Scheme (EFS) introduced last year that did not work well for the sector.
Originally envisaged to streamline and incentivize exports by allowing exporters duty- and tax-free access to inputs used in the production of export goods, the scheme benefited importers over local input producers by putting yarn and all varieties of fabric on the EFS.
By removing the sales tax exemption from domestically produced inputs like cottonseed and yarn while keeping imported equivalents tax-free, the scheme made local sourcing less competitive for Pakistani manufacturers.
“We fully expect that the government would be considerate and they would honor our request, our demand to remove yarn and fabric of all sorts from the EFS scheme and to create a level playing field,” the APTMA chief said.
Separately, at a news conference, he said that while hundreds of local industries had already closed, others were running at partial capacity.
“More than 120 spinning mills and over 800 ginning factories stand closed at the moment,” he said.
NO BUYER FOR US COTTON
Arshad said the government may not find buyers for the additional cotton it is expected to import from the US if the heavily taxed spinning and ginning factories continue to shut down at the current pace.
Pakistan and the US last week began negotiating their “reciprocal” trade tariffs, with Islamabad aiming to bridge its $3 billion trade surplus with Washington by buying more cotton and soybean to avoid the imposition of 29 percent tariffs on its exports to the US.
“Washington has indicated availability of up to 1.5 million bales for export to Pakistan,” the APTMA chairman told reporters at a press briefing.
In the ongoing trade talks, he said one of the offers the Americans were expected to make was the doubling or tripling of cotton exports to Pakistan, which uses cotton as a raw material for its textile industry that fetched $16.7 billion in exports last year.
The US is the biggest buyer of Pakistan’s exports, mostly textiles, which were valued at $5.44 billion last year through June, according to State Bank of Pakistan data.
US Charge d’Affaires Natalie A. Baker last month met Pakistan’s commerce minister, Jam Kamal Khan, and cited enhanced cooperation in the cotton sector as a key area for mutual growth, given Pakistan’s textile industry’s demand for high-quality cotton and the US ability to meet that demand.
“Who will buy this US cotton,” said Arshad, “while more than 120 spinning mills and 800 ginning factories have already shut down across the country.”
He noted the industry was already dealing with the carryover stocks of as much as 800,000 cotton bales from last year while the next crop was about to land.
Spinning mills consume most of Pakistan’s cotton output, which is falling and halved this year to 7.1 million bales after reaching a record 15 million bales in FY15, according to Pakistan Central Cotton Committee data.
Pakistan’s annual cotton consumption is about 15 million bales, but a poor crop made it the biggest importer of US raw cotton in FY23, when the dollar-strapped country had to spend billions on importing more than 4 million cotton bales, each weighing 170 kilograms.
Arshad said for Pakistan to absorb an increased amount of US cotton, a viable and operational spinning industry was essential.
“Without restoring competitiveness for domestic spinners, additional cotton imports will not materialize,” he added.
Pakistan’s finance adviser Khurram Schehzad declined to comment on issues related to the textile sector “before budget,” while finance ministry spokesperson Qamar Sarwar Abbasi did not respond to questions.
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday vowed to strengthen Pakistan’s bilateral ties with Belarus in the fields of defense and technology, during a meeting with Belarusian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Victor Khrenin in Islamabad.
The meeting follows Sharif’s official visit to Belarus in April, where both countries signed a roadmap for military-technical cooperation between 2025 and 2027, as well as multiple agreements on trade, defense and industrial collaboration.
The two sides have since reaffirmed their commitment to expanding economic and strategic cooperation, with Pakistan aiming to attract foreign investment and benefit from Belarus’s manufacturing expertise, particularly in agriculture and heavy machinery.
“Pakistan and Belarus enjoy excellent bilateral relations that are growing stronger with time,” Sharif said, according to a statement from his office. “We wish to further promote economic partnership with Belarus.”
“We want to benefit from Belarus’s expertise in the manufacturing of agricultural machinery,” he continued. “Cooperation with Belarus in the fields of information technology and defense will also be further strengthened.”
The Pakistani leader also recalled the signing of several memorandums of understanding during his April visit, which he said would help expand bilateral engagement.
Sharif took the opportunity to brief the Belarusian delegation on recent regional tensions, including the April 22 Pahalgam incident, in which India accused Pakistan of involvement in an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The prime minister reiterated Islamabad’s position that it had offered an impartial investigation, but instead faced military aggression from New Delhi.
“India responded by targeting civilian populations, killing innocent people,” Sharif told the delegation. “On May 10, Pakistan responded decisively in self-defense.”
The Belarusian defense minister conveyed a message of goodwill from President Aleksandr Lukashenko and thanked the Pakistani side for its warm hospitality.
“We want peace and stability in South Asia,” Khrenin said, adding the purpose of his visit was to follow up on the agreements signed during Sharif’s earlier trip and advance military and technical cooperation.
The meeting was also attended by Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, Minister for Defense Production Raza Hayat Hiraj along with other senior officials.
