Facts of life: PPP, will get nothing from toppling govt, says Zardari

Former president says strong parliament must for economic revival.

LAHORE:

Pakistan and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will gain nothing if the present government is toppled, former president Asif Ali Zardari said on Friday.

He was speaking to party workers from Sargodha division at Bilawal House.

Zardari said economic revival was not possible unless the parliament was strengthened.

“Strengthening democracy is the first step towards the economic revival.”

The former president praised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for continuing the PPP’s policy of strengthening ties with China.

Referring to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) public meetings, he said, “We are aware of the costs involved in organising a jalsa. Those organising sit-ins should be asked to disclose their source of funding.”

He said that instead of ‘ball tampering’, PTI chairman Imran Khan should follow political norms.

“Imran Khan wants to play with a tampered ball, on his own pitch with his own kind of bat.”



Zardari said Imran Khan had been criticising the VIP culture while living on a 700-acre property.

The former president said he too was opposed to the VIP culture but those facing death threats should be given appropriate security.

He said the country would have landed in a deep crisis had the PPP rejected the results of May 2013 general elections.

He vowed to reactivate all the wings and organisations of the PPP.

JI chief slates shooting by Gilani’s guard

Jamaat-i-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq visited the residence of Tahir Malik, who died in a shooting by a guard of Abdul Qadir Gilani, on Friday. Haq offered his condolence to the father of the deceased.

Haq said had courts been independent and the government upright, such incidents would never have occurred.

The JI chief said he was offering condolence on behalf of the entire nation. He said a couple of years ago, Raymond Davis, a US agent, had killed three people in the city but he was sent back to his country. “Incidents like these lead to a sense of insecurity among the masses,” he said.

Haq said that 67 years after independence, Pakistan was being ruled by social “Brahmins”.

Haq said the Jamaat-i-Islami was striving to uproot the VIP culture.

He said this was a test case for Punjab Police. “The people of Pakistan expect an independent enquiry into the murder,” the JI ameer said.

The murderers must be given strict punishment under the law. He said the JI had also set up a legal aid committee to provide the victim assistance in the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2014.