Pakistan’s parliament has historically been one of the weakest institutions in the country, but even by those standards, events that transpired over this past week have set a new low. Masked men entered parliament and took away numerous PTI legislators, who were subsequently arrested by the police. This has caused an uproar across the country, with the PTI leading the charge in terms of talking about the sustained and accelerating decimation of the rule of law and democracy in the country.

In this episode, Uzair talks to Salman Akram Raja about what happened in parliament and what comes next. Mr. Raja is Secretary General of the PTI and a senior supreme court lawyer. We also talked about coalition building and how the PTI intends to reach out to other groups who have been protesting against similar violations for years.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:45 What happened in parliament?

8:30 Ways to strengthen parliament

13:50 Situation in the judiciary

20:45 What is the PTI’s overall engagement strategy?

26:10 Gandapur, divisions, and coalition building

31:40 PTI’s outreach to PTM and others