Daily Times

Foreign Minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has expressed his concerns about the state of democracy in Pakistan, urging for a united effort to prevent it from being pushed into a closed alley, circumstances similar to what the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) endured, a private TV channel reported.

Speaking in the National Assembly on Friday, Bilawal emphasised the need to strengthen Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and called for a politics free from backbiting and character assassination. He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman himself pushed his party into a blind alley following the May 9 vandalism of military installations and martyrs’ memorials due to his rigidness. He said time and again the PTI chief was asked from the parliamentary forums to announce his disassociation from the May 9 incidents but he paid no heed and consequently his party was today in trouble.

Those involved in attacking the military installations and the memorials of martyrs did not deserve any leniency, he added. Bilawal said on May 9, the PTI protesters attacked the Jinnah House, military installations, the General Headquarters, and the monuments of martyrs. Had such attacks been carried out in the US, the United Kingdom or any other country, their perpetrators would not have spared in the name of democracy, he remarked. He said there was no politics, rather the May 9 incidents were acts terrorism. “The Pakistan Peoples Party will never defend those who had attacked the military installations, sensitive places and memorials of martyrs,” he added. The minister said there were provisions in the law that those involved in such heinous acts could be tried in the military courts, and it was also the responsibility of the parliament, government and judiciary to establish the writ of the state at every cost.

Bilawal said all the social media accounts of the former US president [Donald Trump] were closed after his supporters attacked the Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. He regretted that the so-called popular politician [PTI chief] also adopted the same strategy, violated the Constitution and attempted to defeat the no-confidence motion moved by the joint opposition in the National Assembly against him in March 2022. On May 25, 2022, he said, the PTI launched an attack on the Federal Capital, after its chief’s ouster from the Prime Minister House through a democratic and constitutional way of no-confidence motion, in the name of long march and set Islamabad on fire; besides hatching a conspiracy against the ongoing programme of International Monetary Fund (IMF).

At that time, he recalled, that the finance ministers of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also involved in the conspiracy that was also proven by their leaked telephonic conversation. He said in order to bring political stability to the country, the incoming government and the opposition [after the next general elections] would have to play a responsible role while sticking to the Charter of Democracy, signed by the top leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in 2006. The minister stressed the need for devising a comprehensive road map for achieving political and economic stabilityby engaging the reconcilable opposition members. He thanked Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for allocating funds in the budget for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the flood-affected areas; and mobilizing the available resources for instant rescue and relief of the people facing the brunt of the widespread destruction caused by the heavy rains and floods in 2022.