Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam wants 'early and fair' polls in Pakistan

Islamabad, Jan 25 (ANI): Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said that his party wants early and fair elections in Pakistan.

Expressing his reservations for the completion of computerized voters' lists, he said that the lists would not be completed by May, The News reports.

Rehman further said he was not waiting for Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the key person in the Memo Gate scandal, insisting that it was in fact a good sign if he was not coming.

Amid the Memo Gate scandal and the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) issue, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan had earlier said that an early election was the only option left with the country in the prevailing condition.

It was reported earlier this month Pakistan President Asif Zardari reportedly agreed to an opposition demand to hold early elections to deal with the political crisis at home.

The Zardari administration, which is at war with the courts, the opposition and the military establishment, had agreed to hold early national polls only after the separate election takes place in March for the Senate and the upper house of parliament, members of the ruling coalition and its advisers, had claimed.

If the political parties cannot find a way out of the crisis, the threat of a coup remains, analysts had warned.

"There is no other option for the government to come out of the current crisis without elections," an adviser to the leadership of Zardari's ruling Pakistan Peoples party said, adding that this was in its interests to reach an agreement with the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. (ANI)