PPP backs Mazari’s ruling

Party lashes out at Imran for ‘leaving country in economic mess'

The PPP on Saturday backed the ruling of Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari, who had declared PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz as victorious in the election for chief minister’s slot held a day earlier.

The party also blamed PTI chairman and deposed premier Imran Khan for the country's current economic crisis, holding his “fascist agenda of massive debt, mismanagement and violent division of society” responsible for it.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, senior PPP leader and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Kashmir Affairs Qamar Zaman Kaira said Mazari’s ruling was as per law and in line with the Constitution.

He added that the Punjab Assembly deputy speaker had rejected the votes of 10 PML-Q members in light of the apex court decision.

“The members of political parties are bound to follow the decision of their party leadership,” he maintained. “It is the prerogative of the party head to make a decision who its members should vote for.”

On the protest call of the PTI chief, Kaira said Imran was trying to influence the courts by provoking his voters for verdicts in his favour as he only accepted the decisions of his own choice.

“Keeping the current political scenario in view, the Supreme Court should allow a full bench and give a comprehensive decision to avert another political crisis,” he added.

The PPP leader stressed the need for resolving parliamentary matters in parliament instead of approaching the courts every time.

“But unfortunately, it has now become a tradition to challenge parliament's ruling in courts.”
Rejecting accusations of horse-trading during the run-off election for the Punjab CM slot, he said all the stories published and broadcast on TV were fabricated.

Separately, Federal Climate Change Minister Senator Sherry Rehman said Imran’s fascist agenda of massive debt, mismanagement and violent division of society had created an economic "tsunami" in the country.

"The country has been damaged not by your opponents but by your worst regime. The economic disaster you created has hit Pakistan like a tidal wave,” she tweeted.

She added that Imran's only job was to protect his power and had sacrificed Pakistan in his unbridled narcissism.
“Your government has done irreparable damage to Pakistan. It was easier for us to let you sink with your government in this historic economic crisis than taking the power,” she wrote.

“But by then, [Imran] Khan would have plunged Pakistan into crises from which it would be impossible to recover,” she claimed.

“You would have taken the economy to a point of no return. You put the country in a terrible situation during your four-year tenure.”

Sherry pointed out that in 70 years, Pakistan's total debt was 24 thousand billion rupees.
"You borrowed Rs 50,000 billion in four years while running a brazenly false narrative of breaking the begging bowl.”

She further maintained that in 70 years, no government had ever crossed such red lines, borrowing never more than 24,000 billion rupees. “It is you who were taking Pakistan to default."

She alleged that Imran was a conspiracy against the country. "So you left Pakistan totally indebted with net payables now amounting to over Rs 50,000 billion. No govt had ever done that," she added.
(With input from APP)