President Asif Ali Zardari is playing the role of former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev in Pakistan, said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’s Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan and Iqbal Zafar Jhagra during a press briefing at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday.
“Zardari neither has any interest in the country’s political or economic affairs nor does he have any future here,” they told the media in the presence of other PML-N leaders including Saleem Zia, Makhdoom Shahnawaz Qureshi, Muhammad Ismail Rahu, Shahnawaz Khan Rajpar and Mamnoon Husain.
The PML-N delegation is visiting Sindh on the instruction of their party chief Nawaz Sharif to remove “misunderstanding” about the statement of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Karachi and new provinces.
The PML-N leaders expressed concern over the prevailing law and order situation in Karachi where there seems to be no end to targeted killings.
The party also expressed concern over newly-appointed Chief of Staff of the United States Army General Martin E Dempsey’s suggestions because they would prove harmful for Pakistan.
Some changes have been observed in the US administration. Moreover, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan Army are being targeted nationally and internationally.
Responding to a query, Mehtab Khan said that Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan speaks against the ISI in the National Assembly for a reason, but the ISI and the Army are our own.
He said that if other countries target the ISI or the army, the PML-N would step forward to support them.
The army is not the enemy of democracy because former president Pervez Musharraf is no longer in power, he added.
Pakistan appeared to be a colony of the US in 2001, and now Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani have brought Pakistan further into the fold of the US.
Exploitation of resources is not a consequence of democracy, but the result of bad governance. Furthermore, the country is again going through a crucial phase after 1971.
People are being misguided with respect to ‘national’ government. Such a national government was also present in Musharraf’s era, and the same practices are now being repeated. The people of Musharraf are going to join the government.
On the other hand, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan Niazi had previously been playing no major role in Pakistani politics, but now he seems to be surfacing.
Mehtab Khan admitted that because of no proper party structure of the PML-N in the country, especially in Sindh, the party’s performance is being affected. However, the party structure would be announced soon.
