Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday said only parliament can take decisions for the nation, adding that ‘individuals with three-year terms’ have no right to do so.

“What right does an individual, who has tenure of three years, has to make decisions about my nation?” the PPP supremo questioned while addressing a public gathering here. “Only parliament has this right and no one else.”

Without naming anyone, he said they keep visiting different places, and questioned, “What does you have to do [with them]?””There have been 900,000 case pending in courts, you should look into those,” he said. “You have no future, why do you decide about the future of things? I say it even today that one should act remaining within legal and constitutional bounds,” he said, and added that only parliament has the right to make decisions about the nation.

“It was better that transparent elections were allowed to be held and political parties could have formed a government through consensus,” Zardari said. Criticising the government, he said the government functionaries say 100 days were less for them and that what they could do in such a short period. “We got rid of Musharraf in 100 days, we got Swat freed in 100 days,” the PPP co-chairman noted, recalling his party’s tenure in the Centre.

He said only a party of the masses could understand their needs and problems, not the parties ‘that are created’. “If I can run a government in a good way then it does not imply that I can also play good cricket. I don’t know how to play cricket. I know politics and I can do that,” he said. “Politics is when Musharraf reached home and said ‘I don’t know what happened and how it happened’,” he added.

The former president suggested the government to provide opportunities to local businessmen and facilitate stock exchange, adding, “Only technology and experts should be invited from abroad.”

He also criticized the ongoing anti-encroachment drive and added that PTI government deprived above 0.5 million people of their livelihood in Karachi. He said the government should provide alternate places to the people before the anti-encroachment operation.

He said PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto transformed Pakistanin to a nuclear power and his wife Benazir Bhutto gifted the country the latest missile technology.

“It is our first priority to provide the masses with drinking water; we need to work today for our future and come up with new ways to generate water resources,” he said, and added that the entire province is facing a severe dearth of water.

Published in Daily Times, December 16^th2018.