Daily Times

LAHORE: Strongly opposing the Civil Administration Ordinance (CAO) 2016 that has recently been imposed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab Chapter said that it is an act of the ruling Sharifs for establishing their ‘democratic dictatorship’ in the province.

PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira on Wednesday said that it was unfortunate that the Sharif brothers used democratic tactics to establish their dictatorship after coming into power, and that the recent ordinance was a reflection of their undemocratic mindset and dictatorial way of rule.

He was addressing a cake-cutting ceremony held at Charing Cross on The Mall in connection with the 89th birthday celebrations of PPP founder and former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

The Asif Ali Zardari Rehai Committee (ZRC) organised the ceremony, which was participated by some of the prominent figures of the PPP, including Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, Arif Khan, Ch Munawar Anjum, Malik Sohail, Ashraf Bhatti, Afnan Butt, Bushra Malik, Naseer Ahmad, J Victor, Amna Malik, Waseem Shahbuddin, Khalid Butt, Yasmin Farooq and a huge number of workers.

Addressing the gathering, Kaira said that work to launch an anti-government campaign was underway, and soon the party would announce the protest, as the sitting rulers did not believe in democracy. He said that ZA Bhutto had given rights and awareness of the rights to the poor, but the Sharifs were snatching those rights, which was a big injustice to the masses.

He said that through the CAO, the PML-N government had imposed bureaucrats on the elected democratic representatives of the district governments in the province, which could not be accepted in any case.

On this occasion, other speakers said that they were ready to come out on the roads on the call of the party leadership to push for the accountability of the rulers. They also said that they had faced military dictatorship in the past, so they were not afraid of the sitting democratic dictators.