Former president Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will not become part of any rowdyism as planned by the PTI since it could damage the interests and cause of democratic dispensation in the country.
Zardari said this during a meeting with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah at the Bilawal House on Wednesday. He said the PPP had accepted the results of the last year’s general election despite complaints of irregularities in the electoral process for the sake of continuing democracy in the country. According to him, it would be unwise to create a law and order situation on the pretext of rigging in the general elections, a year after accepting its outcome.
Meanwhile, the chief minister apprised the former president about various aspects of PPP’s relationship with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which has just joined the Sindh government.
The chief minister also informed the president about reservations of the MQM Coordination Committee over the “missing party activists and workers and their being subjected to violence and extrajudicial killings”.
Meanwhile, in a message to a PPP rally in lower Dir, which was read out on his behalf by his spokesperson Senator Farhatulalh Babar, the former president categorically denounced the politics of agitation that may be seen as leading to destabilising the democratic structure.
“The party has very serious reservations about the May 2013 general elections and believes that invisible hands were at play to ensure pre-determined results, but it will not join any agitation or movement to upset the democratic structure,” he said.
The event was organised by the provincial chapter of the party to mark the first martyrdom anniversary of party activists who were killed in a militants’ attack during an electioneering campaign last year.
Asif Zardari said that the militants’ attacks last year on political rallies ahead of the elections were aimed at derailing the campaign of the PPP and to force its voters to stay indoors. “This was part of a larger sinister plan by invisible elements to engineer the poll results according to their own scheme,” he said.
Despite obvious rigging and manipulation, the party will not come on the streets to protest against poll rigging, he said.Zardari reminded that elections were manipulated against the PPP and democratic forces. In at least one such case of gerrymandering, the involvement of invisible hands by doling out to anti-PPP elements monies stolen from a bank has been recently established. However, the PPP has refrained from agitation because it does not want to derail the democratic process for which it has rendered huge sacrifices. He said the PPP was the only political party whose two successive chairpersons laid down their lives for the sake of democracy and the people. It is the only party whose workers and leaders alike have made sacrifices for the cause of democracy and it will not allow derailment of the democratic process.
The PPP may feel wounded and aggrieved because of deliberate and dishonest tilting of the playing field against it in the past but it is not suffering from a defeatist mind because it believes that it cannot be defeated, he said.
The former president, on the occasion, directed the PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan to urgently complete the organisational matters of the party and hold similar events to galvanise and motivate the workers throughout the province.
The public meeting attended by a large number of workers from Malakand and Dir was also addressed by PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan, Senator Ahmed Hassan and a number of former federal and provincial ministers and members of parliament including former federal minister Najmuddin Khan, former provincial ministers Engineer Humayun Khan, Liaquat Shabab, Zahir Shah, Muhammad Anwar Khan and MPA from Chitral Salim Khan and others.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Pakistan: PPP will not support PTI’s rowdyism: Zardari
Former president Asif Ali Zardari has said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) will not become part of any rowdyism as planned by the PTI since it could damage the interests and cause of democratic dispensation in the country.
Zardari said this during a meeting with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah at the Bilawal House on Wednesday. He said the PPP had accepted the results of the last year’s general election despite complaints of irregularities in the electoral process for the sake of continuing democracy in the country. According to him, it would be unwise to create a law and order situation on the pretext of rigging in the general elections, a year after accepting its outcome.
Meanwhile, the chief minister apprised the former president about various aspects of PPP’s relationship with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which has just joined the Sindh government.
The chief minister also informed the president about reservations of the MQM Coordination Committee over the “missing party activists and workers and their being subjected to violence and extrajudicial killings”.
Meanwhile, in a message to a PPP rally in lower Dir, which was read out on his behalf by his spokesperson Senator Farhatulalh Babar, the former president categorically denounced the politics of agitation that may be seen as leading to destabilising the democratic structure.
“The party has very serious reservations about the May 2013 general elections and believes that invisible hands were at play to ensure pre-determined results, but it will not join any agitation or movement to upset the democratic structure,” he said.
The event was organised by the provincial chapter of the party to mark the first martyrdom anniversary of party activists who were killed in a militants’ attack during an electioneering campaign last year.
Asif Zardari said that the militants’ attacks last year on political rallies ahead of the elections were aimed at derailing the campaign of the PPP and to force its voters to stay indoors. “This was part of a larger sinister plan by invisible elements to engineer the poll results according to their own scheme,” he said.
Despite obvious rigging and manipulation, the party will not come on the streets to protest against poll rigging, he said.Zardari reminded that elections were manipulated against the PPP and democratic forces. In at least one such case of gerrymandering, the involvement of invisible hands by doling out to anti-PPP elements monies stolen from a bank has been recently established. However, the PPP has refrained from agitation because it does not want to derail the democratic process for which it has rendered huge sacrifices. He said the PPP was the only political party whose two successive chairpersons laid down their lives for the sake of democracy and the people. It is the only party whose workers and leaders alike have made sacrifices for the cause of democracy and it will not allow derailment of the democratic process.
The PPP may feel wounded and aggrieved because of deliberate and dishonest tilting of the playing field against it in the past but it is not suffering from a defeatist mind because it believes that it cannot be defeated, he said.
The former president, on the occasion, directed the PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan to urgently complete the organisational matters of the party and hold similar events to galvanise and motivate the workers throughout the province.
The public meeting attended by a large number of workers from Malakand and Dir was also addressed by PPP provincial president Khanzada Khan, Senator Ahmed Hassan and a number of former federal and provincial ministers and members of parliament including former federal minister Najmuddin Khan, former provincial ministers Engineer Humayun Khan, Liaquat Shabab, Zahir Shah, Muhammad Anwar Khan and MPA from Chitral Salim Khan and others.
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