Opposition set to mark ‘Black Day’ on one-year anniversary of 2018 elections

ISLAMABAD: With opposition parties all set to take to the streets to mark the ‘Black Day’–an anniversary of the July 25, 2018 elections that propelled Imran Khan to power–the government says it will celebrate it as a ‘Day of gratitude’.

The opposition parties had decided in its All-Parties Conference a couple of weeks ago that it would observe July 25, 2019 as a ‘Black Day’ to protest against the alleged rigging that helped the PTI emerge as the largest party in the country and form its government.

Not to be outdone, the government announced it would celebrate the day as a ‘Day of gratitude’ and mark the day as one where it got rid of two corrupt parties.

Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar said that the nation would observe a day of gratitude as on July 25 last year it had gotten rid of the ‘mafia’ that had entrenched itself in the echelons of power for decades.

Opposition parties who will take to the streets include the PPP, PML-N, JUI-F, and the ANP. Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Nawaz Sharif, Rana Sanaullah, the Khawaja brothers and two MNAs from Waziristan are in jail.

Opposition parties have claimed that the PTI won the elections in 2018 as a result of rigging. They allege that the country’s powerful military establishment helped the PTI to power so that it could have a puppet civilian government which would protect its vested interests.

Opposition parties and their lawmakers have taunted Prime Minister Imran Khan with the term ‘selected prime minister’ leading to the deputy speaker to ban use of the word in the parliament.

Ever since it formed the government, the PTI has been struggling to save Pakistan’s teethering economy which is faced with a balance of payments’ deficit crisis. Prime Minister Khan’s government has borrowed heavily from Saudi Arabia, China, the UAE and most recently, the IMF.

Khan blames the PPP and PML-N-led governments for acquiring a mountain of debt due to which the country finds itself difficult to recover from.