Sharif doesn’t have people’s support: Zardari

PPP co-chairman says he has no soft corner for deposed PM

LAHORE: PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has claimed that the PML-N has never had the public mandate and that Nawaz Sharif has always been brought into power by other forces.

“In 1988, Nawaz Sharif was brought into power by Ghulam Ishaq Khan and [former Inter-Service Intelligence chief] Hamid Gul. Sharif is my political opponent and I have no soft corner for him,” Zardari said while talking to a news channel on Friday.

The former president said the apex court rightly called Sharif a mafia godfather. “If he speaks softly, so does a godfather. He has Rs10b portfolio in Pakistan. The companies I am mentioning are public limited and their directors are other people,” he added.

Zardari claimed that Sharif’s businesses were increasing in Punjab. “They are merchants of Punjab. They owned only one business once but now they have 25 businesses. It is the job of NAB [National Accountability Bureau] to unearth the properties of Nawaz Sharif.”



The PPP leader said PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had accepted that Sharif was his prime minister. “Sharif still gets the security of a premier. He has destroyed all institutions,” he added.

He said the PTI has no presence in Sindh and Balochistan and it will lose its hold on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) as well in the next general elections. “There will be competition among the PML-N, the PPP and the PTI in central Punjab,” he added.

He said history had done justice for Benazir Bhutto. It [her sacrifice] will not go wasted. It will always provide security to the tree of democracy,” he added. He also lambasted the MQM and claimed that it was the party of Kalashnikovs, not Karachi.

To a question, Zardari said: “Bilawal and Aseefa are the PPP’s future not me.”