While urging the PPP workers to follow the footsteps of Benazir Bhutto, President Asif Ali Zardari asked them to donate blood and serve the humanity. In a message on the 58th birth anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, Zardari asked the party workers to reiterate their commitment to the values she stood and fought for, and finally laid down her life. “Let us on this day take a leaf from her life and stand up to militants and extremists and vow not to allow them force their ideology through brute force,” he said. President Zardari said, “To commemorate her sacrifice in the fight against militants I urge all party workers to donate blood on this day, as before, for all those who have shed their blood fighting militants.”
The president recalled that days before her assassination, Benazir asked the people to stand up to extremism, dictatorship and to banish poverty and ignorance.”Her clarion call was a road-map for making Pakistan a modern and pluralistic state,” the president said and pledged that the nation would follow the road-map given by her. He said the PPP would continue strengthening democracy and extricating the downtrodden people from poverty and degradation as envisioned by her. With the support of the workers the party would continue its forward march and grow from strength to strength, he said. He paid tribute to those who sacrificed their lives or suffered in the course of democratic struggle and in fighting the militants.
“Let us also remember our martyrs who laid down their lives so that the nation lives and also the martyrs of democracy who suffered exile, imprisonment and execution to end tyranny and dictatorship.”
“On the eve of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto’s birthday we salute them all,” the president said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said the glowing marks left by Benazir were no doubt memorable.
Following the footsteps of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir continued the political struggle during trying and tough times of dictatorship and fought the hurdles of prison, exile and unjust restrictions with utmost courage and acumen, Gilani said. “As result of her struggle, the Pakistan People’s Party won the general elections and Benazir Bhutto became the first prime minister in the Islamic world,” he said.
With her political vision and sagacity, Benazir made remarkable achievements for national development and for the prosperity of nation through multi-pronged strategy, Gilani added. He said the objective and analytic comparison of both her tenures revealed that she always struggled for strengthening democracy, ensuring coordination between the state institutions and bringing change in the political culture in the country. The prime minister said his government was amicably following the philosophy of the PPP’s martyred leader with determination. “Let us pledge on the birthday of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto that we will make Pakistan in true sense an Islamic, democratic, balanced and prosperous state in line with the visions of our national poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal, founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto,” Gilani added.
Follow Benazir’s vision, Zardari tells PPP workers
