00:00Now let's bring in Zulfi Bukhari. He's an advisor to Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan
00:05and a senior leader of his party. Now, during Imran Khan's government, your party came to power
00:12with direct military backing and laid the path for what's happening today. So why attack this
00:17amendment now? When you say direct military backing, let me just correct you. Pakistan
00:24Tariq Ansaf came into power with the mandate of the people. It was one of the most fair elections
00:32that took place. If anything, the military dampened our majority in parliament, didn't increase it.
00:39Pakistan Tariq Ansaf has been the most popular party in Pakistan since 2013 onwards. So, you know,
00:46when you look at military's involvement in or the establishment's involvement in elections or with
00:52the part, with the government to be, it's always siding with the party that's going to win the
00:58election anyways. It's never a case where they come and completely destroy the democratic process
01:04and bring in a hybrid or fraudulent illegal government. It always just sides with, let it
01:10have been Benazir Bhutto in the past or Nawaz Sharif. They were winning the elections anyways, but the
01:16establishment got on board also. The same thing was with PTI, is that they could have been on good
01:21terms with PTI, but they certainly didn't help us win the election. Now, if senior military commanders
01:29now get lifelong immunity, how can any future PTI government hold them accountable?
01:36Well, you know, there's only really Russia who has a similar sort of law to this about
01:42the leader of the country. The president and both the chief of army staff have been given
01:47immunity, which is totally unheard of because they're the highest of public servants. They hold
01:53the highest of ranks, meaning that they have, they should have the highest level of accountability to
01:59the people. Look, at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is that whenever this sort of
02:04dictatorship ends, all these things would eventually be, you know, rewound and overturned.
02:13But until then, all you're seeing is basically democracy and now the judiciary being completely
02:18crushed.
02:20Now, why does your party say that the constitutional amendment is mainly targeting Imran Khan?
02:29Well, look, you have three reasons for it. A, everything that has taken place
02:34now, you know, when it's now into the courts for Imran Khan's cases. Now, all of a sudden,
02:40you've created this constitutional court bench, which basically only has the judges, which are
02:46handpicked by the executive, by the government itself. And if you look at the judges that have
02:51been picked, they're all the people that have always shown favor to the current setup. And they're
02:57being rewarded for it now by being on this bench. So naturally, when you have about 200 cases on Imran Khan
03:05that are all bogus and none of them really will have any legs and wouldn't hold in the court of
03:10law, you've made a special sort of court to just to bring it to, to make sure they get the decision
03:16that you want. And Imran Khan will end up being the prime target of this or their illegal activities,
03:23such as changing the constitution and so on and so forth. So, you know, the main brunt of this is
03:29Imran Khan and Imran Khan's popularity. There is no other way to curb him. So all these, you know,
03:36illegal laws and amendments will be done through this court, which is by their favorite judges,
03:42out of which many senior judges have resigned on the back of this. So, and the high court,
03:49very senior high court judges have actually gone to court against the 27th amendment. So it just
03:56shows you even where the judiciary stands on this. Now, very briefly, if Imran Khan is sidelined due to
04:04his jail time and his isolation, is there nobody else, no other leader ready to step up?
04:10Well, we have an acting chairman in place at the moment. We have a secretary general in place at
04:20the moment, the party considering all its, the way that it's been clamped down upon, protesters arrested,
04:27people killed, main leadership, of course, Imran Khan and other main leadership, our former
04:34foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and others are in prison. Apart from, apart from all of that
04:40happening, the party is still gelled very much together. It's still the largest political
04:45national level party. You've got to understand that Benazir Bhutto's party is limited, very limited,
04:50to Sindh only. And Noashri's party is pretty non-existent, unless when they do a fraudulent or a
04:57lyriced election in Pakistan, Tariq, and Saf is nationally the most popular party. So considering
05:03Imran Khan has been in jail for over two years, the party itself, despite all difficulties and brutality,
05:09has held together very firmly. Thank you very much. Sophie Bukhari there,
05:14advisor to Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan and a senior leader of his party. Thank you very much.
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