SUKKUR: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said Pakistan cannot be governed through force or coercion and must instead be run according to the Constitution and the genuine will of the people.

Addressing a meeting of the JUI-F’s Sindh General Council in Sukkur, Maulana Fazl said the country was facing extremely serious political, economic and law-and-order challenges due to flawed policies and decisions. He called for an immediate review of national policies and warned that Pakistan could no longer afford further “wrong decisions and experiments”.

He said governance through coercion was ‘illegitimate’, including from an Islamic perspective. He said disagreement was a fundamental democratic right and parliament was the supreme constitutional institution, but any constitutional amendment should be based on whether its members genuinely represented the people’s mandate.

He said his party had consistently opposed dictatorship and misguided policies, citing its resistance to the military governments. He stressed party’s politics was guided by national interest and remained within the constitutional framework.

Rejecting proposals to create new provinces, Maulana Fazl warned that attempts to create divisions among people would not be accepted, particularly when the country could not afford further political and economic instability.

Comparing Pakistan’s economy with India’s, the JUI-F chief said India had emerged as the world’s fourth-largest economy and built substantial foreign exchange reserves, while Pakistan continued to face severe economic difficulties.

He urged the government to reassess its economic, political and foreign policies through realistic debate rather than emotional slogans. He also called for greater parliamentary consultation on regional developments and Pakistan’s relations with neighbours. If sensitive matters could not be discussed publicly, parliament should be taken into confidence, he added.

On tensions with India, he said JUI-F had supported the government and country during wartime circumstances, stressing that national interests should take precedence over political differences on security matters.

He urged party workers to focus on public issues and called on the government to restore confidence, correct its policies and move the country forward through constitutional and democratic principles.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2026