President calls for healing divisions in society

Zardari hails Shehbaz-Gandapur interaction

ISLAMABAD:

President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday hailed the recent meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, saying it was time to begin the process of healing the divisions, restoring confidence in democracy and keeping Pakistan above all.

The president’s message is being viewed as an attempt to curb polarisation and ‘political sectarianism’ in society.

The president’s statement has come in connection with the ice-breaking development wherein the K-P chief minister held a meeting with Shehbaz Sharif on March13 in which he asked the premier, who is also the PML-N president, to politically engage with his party’s founder Imran Khan.

“It is high time we start thinking of working towards healing the divisions Pakistan has been going through,” the president said while welcoming the interaction.

In a statement, the president said that he had always advocated for prioritising Pakistan above all else, and it was time we gave people hope in the democratic process by showing them it could work. “This outreach is a good beginning,” Zardari stated.

Read Gandapur asks Shehbaz to engage with Imran

Also, PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafique said that major political parties of the country — including his own, the PPP and the PTI — would have to “accept each other”.

In a post on X, he referred to the recent meeting between KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and PM Shehbaz Sharif, terming it a “step in the right direction”.

Rafique said, “The pulse of the country is drowning in the game of putting each other down.”
Asserting that the PML-N and the PPP had “buried the game full of hatred”, he criticised ex-premier Imran Khan for indulging in the same “game” and involving others in it.

Rafique said: “[We] will have to accept each other. Dialogue with rival parties on state matters should continue.”

The contact between the two political opponents has rekindled the hope of reconciliation and raised the hopes of lowering the political temperature, which intensified amid rigging allegations and calls for protest against the government.

Meanwhile, PTI leader Hammad Azhar has said that K-P Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur’s meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should not be considered an indication of “any compromise on the theft of Imran Khan’s or the public’s mandate”.

In a post on X, Azhar said, “Firstly, Ali Amin would never do so and even if he does, he himself knows the emotions of the public and the party. “Thousands of our people (workers) are currently unjustly imprisoned and half of the national and Punjab assemblies are fake,” he claimed. “This is no small matter.”