Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that it is “evident” that his party will form the next government. Speaking at Sukkur’s Jinnah Stadium on Monday, the PPP leader said, “It’s writing on the wall” that the next government would be that of the PPP.

Expressing his views on the issue of the upcoming general elections and the controversy surrounding it, he said: “The general elections are inevitable.”

He added, “They [elections] will be held within 90 days, if not then 100 or even within 120 days at most.”

Refuting the narrative that the PPP doesn’t deliver, the former foreign minister – accentuating the Sindh government’s National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) – said: “There’s not even a single hospital even in Islamabad that is at par with NICVD.”

“If someone can’t afford private hospitals, then they can visit Sindh government’s hospitals that provide free of charge care,” the PPP chairman said. A day earlier, Bilawal while addressing the inauguration ceremony of a water filtration plant in Hyderabad, had said that his former political allies were running away from the elections.

The PPP leader, without taking any names took a jibe against former ally Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) over their reluctance to support elections within the 90-day constitutional limit.

It is pertinent to know that Bilawal has repeatedly echoed his party’s central executive committee’s (CEC) stance in favour of holding elections within 90 days.

The stance – however – has put Bilawal and PPP’s CEC at odds with the former president and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari who supports fresh delimitations under the new census and therefore effectively favouring holding of elections post the 90-day limit. The PML-N-led Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government dissolved the National Assembly on August 9 to allow the electoral authority to hold elections in the country within 90 days instead of 60 days if the legislature completed its constitutional tenure. If the elections are to be held within the thee 90-day limit, then the polls are due on November 9, 2023. However, before dissolving the assemblies the coalition government in a Council of Common Interest (CCI) meeting had unanimously approved the 7th Population and Housing Census 2023.

Following CCI’s approval, the ECP on August 17 announced the schedule of new delimitations which exceeded the November 9th 90-day constitutional limit, almost making sure that the elections are likely to be held post the 90-day mark.