Bilawal Bhutto conditionally ready to work with PDM
Staff Writer
Islamabad: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said this week that his party can work with the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) provided that they drop the proposal for en masse resignations and adopt his strategy of the no-confidence move.
The PPP chairman offered a counterproposal to PDM and once again broached the idea of bringing a no-confidence motion against the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government – a bone of contention that resulted in the party’s separation from the alliance.
Bilawal Bhutto’s indication towards the prospects of reconciliation constitutes his first statement since his party poured cold water on the PDM’s idea of en masse resignation, leaving the alliance struggling to salvage its plans to oust the incumbent government.
“My demand from the first day was to bring a no-confidence motion against this government,” Bilawal said during his media talk at the Parliament House.
“The government should be dislodged through democratic means,” the PPP chairman said, adding all parties have to play their role to oust the government.
“We have decided to March on Feb 27, and it does not matter if there is a single march or multiple ones. They will only add to the pressure on the government.” Every democratic party will have to play its role to rid people of this government, he added.
Bilawal Bhutto said that there was a high possibility of the opposition working together now that the PDM has come to the same conclusion that PPP had reached earlier.
In a PDM meeting on March 16 last year, Asif Ali Zardari had demanded that ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who is in London for medical treatment, should return to the country, saying that the leaders should be prepared to go to jails in their struggle.
Apart from Sharif’s return, the meeting had witnessed heated exchanges on tendering resignations from assemblies and defeat of the opposition candidates in the election for Senate top slots. PPP had disagreed with the proposal of linking long march against the government with resignations from the assemblies.
During the talk, Bilawal Bhutto said that PPP rallies will pass through the constituencies of government MNAs and allies and show them the demand of the people, which is to be liberated from the tyranny of this new Pakistan.
Commenting on the bill pertaining to granting autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), he regretted that opposition’s amendments were not heard regarding the bill.
Regarding the presidential system, he said that the constitution of the Quaid-e-Awam has given a federal, democratic and parliamentary Islamic republic to the nation, adding “there is no space for a presidential system in the constitution.”
Talking about the presidential system, he said that it was an effort to distract the people from the price-hike, unemployment, poverty and agricultural crisis.
PPP has always maintained the respect of the country in the international community, he said, adding that Pakistan had discontinued the NATO supply and demanded an apology from the United States during the Salalah incident. For the first time in history, he recalled, a superpower had apologized to an elected government and its people.
