Prepared to face court trials: Zardari

Says it won’t make a difference <br /> if govt makes 50 more cases

BADIN: Keeping up his defiant stance, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said he is prepared to face the court trials.

“I, my family, my son and my daughter have decided that we have to carry forward the mission of Benazir Bhutto and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,” said Zardari while addressing a gathering of the party’s supporters in Badin on Sunday.

“We will not be frightened by your tactics. Don’t make one but 50 cases. God willing, I will face them all like I did in the past. I faced ‘50, 50’ cases. It won’t make a difference.”



He asserted that his implication in the corruption cases would also not affect his and his party’s support base among the people because they trusted the blood and vision of Bhuttos as well as Zardari’s.

“You can’t remove us from the hearts of the people. You may continue your efforts and we will continue the fight,” he added.

He said “keep creating dramas of muckraking” but “I will emerge more popular” at the end of the day.

Recalling his last imprisonment during which he won an election, Zardari said if he was incarcerated again he would only receive more admiration from the people.



 

Referring to PPP MPA Sharjeel Memon, who won a seat of the provincial assembly from Hyderabad in the July 25 general elections during his imprisonment, Zardari, without mentioning the name of Tabdeeli Pasand Party leader Ali Qazi, said, “He is a ‘rich person’, who was brought to contest against the PPP’s candidate, but failed.”

Zardari said, “I want to help friends who are sitting in non-political places and who are not trying to occupy the democratic institutions. They should think and understand what will happen tomorrow and the day after. In which direction are we taking the country?”

He differentiated between his and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s approach towards the business community, saying in the first week of PPP’s government in 2008 he had outlined his cooperative policy for the Karachi Stock Exchange. According to him, during five years of his government the exchange was supported and no new tax was levied until the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz came to power in 2013.

“There was $90 billion in the stock exchange when the captain came and [that amount] has now reduced to $40 billion.”

He blamed Imran for carrying the begging bowl during his foreign visits to get $1 billion to $3 billion temporary financial support whereas $50 billion had been wiped out from the stock exchange.

“When you [Imran] don’t understand these matters then why are you doing this job? I don’t know cricket and I have never tried to play it either.”

Zardari criticised the bureaucracy for lacking capacity and deplored that the PTI government was depending too much on their input.

He contended that the bureaucrats could not help the government develop a vision for the future and make plans accordingly, adding that the bureaucrats planned for only five years but politicians had to act as visionaries who plan for decades to come.

The PPP’s leader promised the coastal districts of Sindh that his party’s provincial government would construct a coastal highway to stop sea intrusion which had consumed around 700,000 acres of land. According to him, the provincial government was preparing a tender for the project. He lamented that he had earlier planned a Zulfiqarabad project which if implemented would have led to development of coastal areas in Thatta and Badin.