Passing the baton: I would have handed power to Imran, says Gilani

Says moral courage is more important than political courage

MULTAN: Hinting towards a rather unprecedented move, the former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that had he been the premier, he would have handed over the rule directly to Imran khan. “Moral courage is of foremost importance than political courage,” he said.

Gilani, who is also the senior vice president of Pakistan Peoples Party, blamed Nawaz Sharif for behaving more like the prime minister of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)than that of the country.



“He does not care about the country. In the last two months, every step of Nawaz and PML-N shows their political immaturity to resolve the situation,” he added. He said that many seats of national and provincial assemblies will go vacant in next two months and PPP will contest for every seat in every election. Gilani is also running a political campaign in NA-149 for Javed Siddiqi who is the candidate of PPP and is struggling for the political space.

“Pakistan is no more an easy country to rule because its people have now started to fight for their right.” This has in fact ended the space for a dictator and if a politician will act like a dictator, he will die the worst living death in his motherland, said Gilani.

Talking about the statement of Khursheed Shah regarding the midterm polls, he called it a reality saying “it has to be decided sooner or later”.

He said that all institutions will act according to law only when we will empower our parliament. “They all work automatically in their legal jurisdiction and there will be no space of activism for any institution but parliament needs support from democracy.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2014.