Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday said all political parties should jointly table a resolution against the government, predicting that it won’t be able to function for long.

“Neither is the government going to continue, nor can it run the country,” he said while addressing a press conference.

Zardari went on to say said that the incumbent government had shown its incompetence in a very short span of time. He said that a principle-based decision would have to be made to correct the direction in which the country was heading.

Unlike PTI, he claimed that the PPP delivered in its five years of government.

“The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is calling peoples’ servants to answer questions in investigations, the same has happened in the time of former president Pervez Musharraf,” he said.

Responding to a question, the former president said he did not make any remarks about the NAB chairman, rather he raised questions about the latter’s thinking and manner of work.

Without naming anyone, the former president said that when some people are given charge of an important office, their manners change completely.

“When I became the president I transferred all powers to the parliament,” he recalled, “But Nawaz Sharif did not like any of our policies.”

Speaking of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), Zardari said he was still facing the cases formed against him during PML-N’s government. The former president claimed he did not take any advantage of NRO but said that parties like MQM and people like Nawaz Sharif might have taken advantage of it.

The NRO, passed by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2007, granted amnesty to politicians and other individuals by quashing various corruption and criminal cases against them so they could return to the country and engage in the democratic process.

Zardari claimed that the PPP had given China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and many other programmes to Pakistan during its tenure.

On Thursday, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari made a similar statement, claiming that the newly elected government of Imran Khan was unlikely to complete its five-year term as his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had turned itself into “Pakistan Tehreek-e-Intiqam”, referring to recent moves by the government, including the arrest of Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif.

He was speaking to reporters at Karsaz monument of the Oct 18 victims.

Published in Daily Times, October 22^nd 2018.