The Awm Pakistan Party’s main slogan is “Badri-en-gahen-nizam” (We will change the system) and membership is open to all.
 "Former Pakistan PM Abbasi launches new party to 'change the regime'")
Press Trust of India Islamabad
Pakistan’s former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday formally launched a new political party whose mission is to change the system and restore respect for the country’s constitution.
The main slogan of the Awaam Pakistan Party is “Badlien gaen nizam” (we will change the system) and anyone who can contribute to the country’s development can become a member of the party.
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Abbasi, 65, served as prime minister from August 2017 to May 2018, when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court.
Abbasi, who lives in Rawalpindi’s Murli area, a popular hill resort town, has distanced himself from the PML-N since 2018 over policy differences and has refused to join the government in 2022.
He was a businessman whose family owned the country’s AirBlue airline, and entered politics in 1988 when he was first elected to parliament. He was elected at least six times on the PML-N platform, was considered close to party leader Nawaz Sharif, and also served as a federal minister.
Speaking at a launch event here, Abbasi said the country’s entire system, including governance, police and revenue systems, was dysfunctional. The system could not move forward unless power was devolved to the district level, he said.
You cannot run a country without following the constitution. The party is firmly rooted in the Pakistani constitution and parliamentary democracy and there is no other way, he said. The tragedy is that those who have taken an oath to uphold the constitution are violating it every day. How can a country of 240 million people be run like this?
Abbasi made it clear that the party’s philosophy is to help the people of Pakistan and be responsible towards them. “We don’t want people who take something from the country, we want people who contribute to the country,” he said. Only those who contribute and give can move the country forward.
He said he was asked if the powers that be had given permission to launch a new party. This is the point we have reached. An ordinary person believes that nothing happens in this country without the permission of those in power.
They think political parties can’t do anything, but that’s because the establishment created these parties, he said, apparently referring to the powerful military.
The former prime minister regretted that politics had become more about retaining seats than serving the people and emphasised that Awam Pakistan was an unconventional party.
Abbasi will be joined by Miftah Ismail, a former finance minister who, like him, left the PML-N due to differences with the party’s political approach and other leaders.
Ismail served as a minister in the Abbasi government and later in the Shehbaz Sharif government.
Abbasi launched a nationwide debate under the slogan “Reinvent Pakistan” in 2023 to lay the foundations for a new political party.
Abbasi has argued in many debates and seminars that only a new political party willing to change the current system can save the country from crisis.
The new party was announced last month in a video shared on Awam Pakistan’s official X platform, which showed despondent citizens addressing national issues including inflation, energy shortages, corruption, unemployment and education disparities. But it was only officially launched on Saturday.
