–PPP co-chairman says his party is on the offensive as political institutions are under threat
KASHMORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari criticised the government for placing his name on the Exit Control List (ECL) despite the fact he had submitted his passport to the court at the time of his pre-arrest bail.
Dismissing the notion that he won’t leave the country, the PPP co-chairman said he would be buried in Garhi Khuda Baksh and would be answerable to [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto and Benazir after death.
Speaking at a public gathering in Kashmore, the former president said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government led by Imran Khan only wanted to create drama. But this won’t affect our party voters, he said, adding that he was “fighting for [rights of] people”.
Taking an aim the establishment, he said in 71-year history, it has meted out poor treatment to the politicians who wanted the country to progress. “I am still not scared,” he added.
He said his opponents were “deaf and dumb” who toppled Benazir Bhutto’s government in 1992 and 1996, killed her but still couldn’t stop her. “They weren’t able to topple my government. I completed my five-year tenure. Worked for the poor, distributed provincial budget equally but those who are sitting away can’t understand it,” he further said.
He said the party is on the offensive as the powers-that-be are ending the political institutions. “How can I make those people understand something who are up to ending political institutions. What can I do if you don’t have any senses?” Zardari quipped without naming any political party or state institution.
The former president said that there will be a day when Sindh will have its own gas company like the province made its own coal company and made people of Pakistan as their partners.
The former president is on the offensive ever since he and his sister were named in the fake accounts case. Following the Supreme Court-mandated JIT report that implicates his son and several party leaders as well, the PPP co-chairman has gone all-out against the military establishment and the ruling PTI. What added fire to the fuel was the government putting PPP leadership on the no-fly list on Thursday.
Consequently, Zardari had warned that his party would take the government back from the “ladla” (blue-eyed person) through a democratic process, adding that the party’s leadership will not get deterred by the “favoured one’s” tactics.
He had also vowed to fight his political opponents “in court and everywhere else”, saying “they have started to sound like a broken record. They don’t know how to do anything except spewing rubbish on television.”