Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saka.

My guest today has long experience navigating the treacherous waters of Pakistani politics.

Fawad Chowdhury began his career as a lawyer, turned his hand to journalism,

then made his name as a political chameleon, giving his loyalty in turn to former President Pervez

Musharraf, then the Bhutto-inspired Pakistan People's Party, before moving to the insurgent

PTI Party, founded by former cricketer turned populist politician Imran Khan. Chowdhry became

information minister in Prime Minister

Khan's government, which was brought down by a parliamentary vote of no confidence in the spring

of last year. Since then, Pakistani politics has remained febrile. The PTI, of which Chowdry is a senior

vice president, is doing everything in its power to bring down the current coalition government led by Shabaz Sharif and force early parliamentary elections.

In the meantime, senior PTI figures, including Imran Khan and Mr. Chowdhury, are facing legal challenges,

which they attribute to establishment dirty tricks.

Now, amid the political and legal drama,

Pakistan's economy is teetering on the brink of disaster,

afflicted by a toxic cocktail of inflation, debt and corruption.

In this time of crisis, are the politicians capable of

putting opportunism to one side? Well, Foward Chowdry joins me now from Lahore. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you. Mr. Chowdhury, if ever there were a time in Pakistan for politicians to put their partisan interests and differences aside and pull together for the good of the nation, it would be now with your country facing a massive economic crisis.

Are you in the PTI prepared to do that?

Yeah, we are all prepared to do that.

But you will appreciate we are not a communist country.

We are not one party system that are prevailing in Pakistan.

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