Babar Awan sees no threat to govt

DAWN.COM

Former law minister Babar Awan says the PPP will complete its tenure with the help of its allies.

“There has been no threat to the PPP-led coalition government (in the wake of the current crisis) as the party respects the law,” Mr Awan said at a press conference here on Monday.

He said: “All the PPP allies are standing by it and we pay tribute to Chaudhry Shujaat, Asfandyar Wali, Altaf Husain, Pir Sibghatullah and even Fazlur Rehman for their pro-democracy stance.”

He asked the PML-N leadership not to tell the PPP what to do and what not. “Those who had attacked the Supreme Court building are advising us. Everyone from Z.A Bhutto to today’s PPP leaders had gone through the judicial process,” he said, adding that the democratic process would continue.

He said all fake cases were registered against President Zardari during the regime of Nawaz Sharif. “Saifur Rehman, the then accountability bureau head, had instituted cases against Asif Ali Zardari at the behest of Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

Babar Awan asked the Sharif brothers to declare their assets they made during exile (in Saudi Arabia). He said the Sharifs were still having a bias against their political rivals as they had learnt nothing from the past. Shahbaz Sharif had wasted no time in becoming a petitioner in the NRO case but he withdrew it after realising that he was coming to power, Awan said.

The PPP leader said his party would form a coalition government in Punjab after next election because of bad performance of Shahbaz Sharif. “The media has exposed the Punjab government with regard to dengue and drug reaction deaths and everyone has also witnessed its arm-twisting to stop media from coverage of the issues,” he said.

Mr Awan said Shahbaz had attended only a few Punjab Assembly sessions during the last four years while Prime Minister Gilani hardly missed any National Assemly session, that showed the democratic mindset of the former.