Provincial affairs: ‘We accepted rigged elections for democracy’

Asif Ali Zardari asks party workers in K-P to resolve differences.

NOWSHERA/ PESHAWAR:

In his first address after intra-party elections of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the province, party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari asked workers to shun their differences.

He was addressing party workers via telephone at the residence of former MNA Tariq Khattak. Former provincial assembly speaker Abdul Akbar Khan, ex-MNA Lal Khan, former provincial minister Muzafar Shah, former K-P governor Masood Kausar and a number of party leaders and activists were present on the occasion.

The former president did not address party workers during the intra-party elections apparently due to growing rifts within the PPP in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

Zardari said he does not want a “Swat-like situation in the rest of the country” and that his party wants peace to return in war-torn K-P.

The former president said he knew that rigging had taken place in last year’s general elections but he accepted the results for the survival of democracy.

The differences within the party were conspicuous with the absence of PPP K-P President Khanzada Khan at the ceremony. When contacted, Khan said it was a small meeting to which he had been privy. “This was not an extraordinary meeting,” he said.

Masood Kausar and Abdul Akbar said, while talking to journalists, the party lost in the last election due to weaknesses of its ministers and leaders. Another leader of the party, Shamsher Khan, said when the party came into power, PPP leaders and ministers did not give weightage to the sacrifices of the party’s real workers but to turncoats.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2014.