Defending the PPP: Premier dismisses ‘test tube’ parties

Says ‘political orphans’ will bow down before US like Musharraf did.

MULTAN: Dismissing threats from emerging political groups as ‘insignificant,’ an assertive premier said the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is the lone symbol of the federation and the future of Pakistani politics still belonged to the party.

“Opportunists have always tried to destroy Pakistan but the real power of the country lies in its people,” said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani while inaugurating the head Muhammad Waala Bridge in Multan. He said the party is larger than individuals, and will not be harmed by anyone’s departure.

“Our party has always been blamed for feudal politics within a family but it was the PPP that selected the prime minister of the country from a backward Seraiki region,” Gilani said. “It is us who stood against all pressures from the US and gave them a clear signal that bilateral relations will be based on equality,” he added.

He reserved the harshest critique for the country’s emerging political forces.

“Today’s test tube parties and political orphans will just bow down before United States, like Musharraf did on a single phone call,” said Gilani, in an apparent reference to Imran Khan’s Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The premier asserted that it was PPP which was the real guarantor of political stability and institutional alignment in the country and no establishment-backed bloc can assure that.“Dictators will continue to unite hollow politicians but the need of the hour is that politicians of Pakistan unite for saving democracy in the country,” said Gilani.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2012.