President Zardari says won’t seek re-election

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PakistanToday
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President Asif Ali Zardari has said that he will not seek re-election after his five-year term expires in September because he has lost a majority in the country’s parliament.

However if the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) gave him a leadership role he would work for re-organising it and be an ordinary party worker, he said, in a first interview to a select group of journalists on Saturday night since the May 11 general election.

Zardari termed the democratic transition of power in the country a landmark achievement following the elections in which the PPP lost to Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

He had run the PPP with tight control as co-chairman after the 2007 assassination of his wife and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto while his son Bilawal Bhuto Zardari was chairman. Earlier this year he dissociated himself from the party post in line with a high court verdict.

Zardari said he wants PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to be elected as consensus prime minister like former PPP prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani‚ but for this purpose he himself would have to contact other political parties.

He said the PPP, which is now in the second position in the National Assembly, had some weaknesses and that time was needed for improvement. He added that the PPP would play an effective and positive role as the opposition.

NO DEAL ON DRONES

The president said the previous government had not made any deal with the US on drone attacks on Pakistani territory and the new government would have to take policy decisions in keeping with national interest.

“Maybe General Pervez Musharraf had made some sort of agreement with the US but I am not aware of any such agreement and I have not seen it during my tenure,” the president said.

Speaking of the possibility of talks with banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Zardari said first “we should determine those groups we can talk to in a political way” as he was of the view that militants do not come to the negotiating table.

 

 

MUSHARRAF’S FATE

Responding to a question about former president Musharraf, currently under detention at his farmhouse in Islamabad, Zardari said Sharif would have to decide how to handle those matters.

To a question about the closed money laundering cases against him in Switzerland, Zardari said he had spent eight years in jail in Pakistan and yet no charges had been proved against him.

He blamed “foreign hands” for disturbing law and order in Karachi. The PPP has won provincial assembly polls in Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital, and is once again in control there.

Speaking of the 10-year separatist insurgency in Balochistan involving Baloch militant groups, Zardari said the previous government had done a lot for the Baloch people but had done nothing for themselves.

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43 COMMENTS

  8. He is winding up his business after five years of profit making. the time is now over, so pack and leave and live in luxurty for rest of life with ill gotten money. forget the Party and let him have a party in Dubai and London, to check profit and loss account

    • u live in dreams. He spent 11 yrs in prison, and not like Nawaz who cud live in prison in his country and ran to Jedda after one year

      • Zardari spent 8 years in jail and he too along with his dead wife ran to London where the kids still live,actually Zardari is the one living a dream life(not live in dream) quit licking Zardari's a s s.He has done nothing but destroy Pakistan and starve its people,ROTI KAPRA OR MAKAN my a s s .

        • He did not flee to jedda under deal with Musharaf, rather he was released by a court order, you so called desi

        • He restored the Dastoor of Pakistan which is very survival basis of a country, how come u say he destroyed the country. U hv no logic

  18. I think he will most prefer to resume his real estate and commissioning business.

  21. Nouman Aftab insan ban yar yehi masla hai tum PTI k overnight inqalabiyo k sath galiyan bohat bakte ho 🙂

  26. He is winding up his business after five years of profit making. the time is now over, so pack and leave and live in luxurty for rest of life with ill gotten money. forget the Party and let him have a party in Dubai and London, to check profit and loss account

  36. Naqvi mainay kisi k khuda ko gali nai di yad rakho sirf dosro k jhutay khudao ko he bura kehna mana hai, Laeeq tujhay kya tension hai tu thandi hawa k mazay lay aisai Pakistan ki baaton may taang arata hai, pehlay apnay mehboob say overseas vote ka huq to lay lay 🙂

  37. Naqvi mainay kisi k khuda ko gali nai di yad rakho sirf dosro k jhutay khudao ko he bura kehna mana hai, Laeeq tujhay kya tension hai tu thandi hawa k mazay lay aisai Pakistan ki baaton may taang arata hai, pehlay apnay mehboob say overseas vote ka huq to lay lay 🙂

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