PPP will oust ‘Zia’s remnants’: Bilawal

Says PM ready to scapegoat his children in the case.

FAISALABAD/ LAHORE: Reiterating his four demands, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has announced plans to continue ‘his movement’ till ouster of former military dictator ‘General Ziaul Haq’s remnants’.

“I have come out to fight for people and appeal to the people to cooperate with me. This movement is against the government for not fulfilling my four demands,” Bilawal said on Thursday while addressing participants of a rally organised from Lahore to Faisalabad.

Bilawal on October 17 demanded that the government appoint a full-time foreign minister, form a parliamentary panel on national security, pass the opposition’s bill to probe the Panamagate scandal and implement a resolution passed by an all-parties conference on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

 The PPP chief had given the government until December 27 to accept his demands, threatening that otherwise his party would launch a forceful protest campaign against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. However, instead of announcing any solid line of action against the government, the PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Dec 27 announced he and Bilawal will enter parliamentary politics by participating in by-polls.

Reportedly the party had also scaled down its earlier plan of protests and rallies in Punjab which had now been reduced to a mass-contact campaign. Under the revised plan, the PPP was considering to hold public gatherings in Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Balochistan.

However during his speech on Thursday, the PPP’s young chief severely criticised the PML-N government, accusing it of corruption, sky-rocketing prices of commodities, and initiating ‘failed’ schemes on education and health.

He said the security situation in the country was worsening and Pakistan was facing big challenges at the international level. “The foreign policy of the country based on Sharif family’s aspirations cannot continue,” he said.

Bilawal demanded that the government appoint a permanent foreign minister and make a solid national policy for the country.  He said the PML-N had claimed to form a parliamentary committee to ensure peace in the country but later it backtracked.



He said the PPP leaders were being implicated in false cases while the PM’s family was making offshore companies.  “Nawaz Sharif is trying to make his children face cases of making offshore companies only to save his own skin while the PPP leaders offered their lives whenever the national interest so demanded,” he said.

The PPP chief accused Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif of initiating failed schemes like food stamp scheme, Danish schools and solar energy project. “All these schemes have failed and despite that the CM is dreaming of getting elected again,” he said, adding that “all of his success is limited to media stories.”

Making a comparison between the last PPP era and the present times, he said the electricity was cheaper during the PPP’s government while oil prices in international market were higher. “But now electricity prices are higher while the oil prices in international market are much lower,” he said.

“During their tenure only Panama accounts of Sharif family have progressed,” he said, in reference to the offshore companies owned by the PM’s family members as revealed by the Panama Papers.

Earlier, addressing the media at the Bilawal House in Lahore, the PPP Central Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira said the party had initiated its anti-government campaign from Lahore and the campaign would end after termination of present government’s rule.



Kaira said situation had gone beyond Bilawal’s four demands of democratic accountability. “The PPP with support of other opposition parties will end rule of PML-N from the country.” Former PM Raja Parvez Ashraf said the PPP had always struggled for democracy and Thursday’s rally was part of this struggle.

“Despite its tall claims the government has badly failed in foreign policy. It has failed to deliver and the people of Pakistan want to get rid of the present rulers,” he claimed, adding that the PPP had once again got activated under the leadership of Bilawal Bhutto.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2017.