Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Sunday said there was no reason to avoid holding elections for local government bodies in the provinces. In an interview with a private TV channel, he said parliament should complete its tenure of five years and the government that has presented four budgets would also table its fifth budget next year.
The prime minister said whatever the opposition was doing was to stop the government from succeeding in Senate elections in March 2012.
“The opposition neither has any programme, nor vision,” he said adding that “the opposition is going to lose its sleep as March approaches”.
He said when Pervez Musharraf was angry with the judiciary, the PPP took practical steps and came onto roads in support of the judges.
Sincerity: “I faced tear gas and was baton charged along with others near the Lahore High Court,” he said and posed a question, “Who has been more supportive of the judiciary than us?”
“At that time, the PPP held a long march and Benazir Bhutto was arrested and I led the long march and cases were registered against me under 16 MPO for trial in an anti-terrorism court. I restored judiciary with executive orders.”
He said democracy was in its nascent stages after a period of dictatorship and all institutions were going through an evolution process.
“In a system of trichotomy of powers, every institution is making effort to strengthen its domain,” he said, added that he had no objection to the judiciary wanting to make itself strong and independent.
“If I want parliament to be respected, then other institutions should also respect it. There should be mutual respect and institutions should work within their ambit.”
The prime minister said it was the role of the opposition to criticise the government and it was supposed to say what it was saying now.
“It is the opposition’s role to embarrass the government. We welcome this role. We wanted to strengthen democracy and we will not let the opposition fall,” he said, adding that the federal government would not obstruct the functioning of the Punjab government.
Gilani said the country was excelling by the day after the restoration of democracy.
