Zardari urges Shehbaz to talk to opposition

ISLAMABAD: Former president and Pakistan Peoples Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari Monday urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to initiate dialogue with the opposition.

“We can request the prime minister to have a dialogue with the opposition. But they will have to come to him as he is the prime minister,” he said while addressing the parliamentary session. He said one could not enter into dialogue with pre-conditions, but it also did not suit a government to go into a clash. “We cannot go into a clash at a time when people are unable to feed their children,” he said and added: “By the grace of Almighty Allah, we were able to restore the 1973 Constitution. However, what was dreamt by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Wali Khan, Mufti Mehmood and others, remains to be materialised.”

He said [Former director general of Intelligence Bureau IB] Masood Sharif [Khan Khattak] was given the notice to explain himself for bugging the court. “He is on record to have stated that the court was engaging in politics and it was his duty as the DG Intelligence Bureau to intervene.”

He said people kept saying that the country would go bankrupt. “Did Japan go bankrupt? Did Korea go bankrupt? There was a time when Argentina’s currency was on a par with the dollar and today, it is faring below ours,” he said, adding that there was a time when India had only one billion dollars in its reserves, and it sent its gold to Switzerland to get a tranche from the IMF.”

Zardari said: “We made the 18th Amendment and the NFC Award possible. We raised our voices for the rights of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Balochistan is home to people with political minds, but we have to talk to them and engage them. Currently, an enemy state has created an environment that does not allow talks to take place. However, we will go to Balochistan and KP.”

Separately, PPP Chairman and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, addressing a constitutional convention at the National Assembly Hall, said on Monday it was imperative that on the golden jubilee of the Constitution, the conspiracies should be unveiled which did not end even with the removal of the selected puppet [Imran Khan] through a no-confidence vote in the assembly.

“Till today, there are still entities in every institution who are against this democratic journey as they not only are against this Constitution on an ideological level but are also opposing the democratic path for their personal benefits,” he added.

Bilawal said for the first time in the country’s history, a selected puppet was sent packing not with the help of the judiciary or the establishment, but through a democratic method of the no-confidence motion.

Bilawal said the conspirators still wanted to usurp the power given to people through the Constitution and the 18th Amendment and establish a ‘One Unit’ selected rule. He said the main characters of the conspiracy hatched in the past three years had still not been revealed before the nation. “It was a decade-long plan and Imran Niazi was not the sole character,” he claimed.

He said there were other institutions in the country, such as our judiciary, in the history of which there were judges who refuted every dictator and wrote dissenting notes.

The foreign minister said similar to the doctrine that was being planned for the Parliament, a conspiracy was being hatched in the Supreme Court. He said that on the one side if a prime minister was being made to stay for 10 years, on the other some judges were also to be given extensions. “Those involved in this are still part of our honourable judiciary today. Through the no-confidence motion, this conspiracy was also made unsuccessful,” he said.

The PPP chairman said there was also another ‘institution’, the usual term for which is a misnomer, as it is under the defence minister. “There was a conspiracy here too, where the murder of merit was to take place. Someone was to be imposed on this institution for 10 years as well,” he claimed.

Bilawal Bhutto said the plan was to have a selected prime minister, a selected chief justice of Pakistan and a selected chief of army staff (COAS) to establish a selected martial law. “For the world,” he said, “We would have been a democratic nation, but the reality would have been different. We were wrong to assume that the conspiracy would end with the no-confidence motion. It is continuing even today,” he said.

The foreign minister said the conspiracy is to tear apart the Constitution and we have to work unitedly to defeat the conspiracy. “This game is not being played in our institution, and the other has chosen to be neutral. This leaves one place for the game to be continued,” he said.

Bilawal appealed to the CJP to form a democratic consensus within the institution as the judiciary of Pakistan stands at a crossroads.

He said the court could either be one that defends the Constitution of Pakistan with its judges unitedly forming one bench to form a democratic consensus or run a ‘one-man show’ as Justice Minallah calls it a ‘politician in black robes’, “who want to tell us that 2 plus 2 is 3, not 4.

“I am confident that the consensus of the Supreme Court of Pakistan would be democratic and withstand any conspiracy,” he said.

Bilawal said the CJP, along with a few judges, was insisting on telling the nation that the notes of Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Athar Minallah were irrelevant. He said the people of Pakistan could not afford the joke that is being played with Pakistan’s judiciary and the Constitution as part of a bigger game. “Our minister for finance works day and night so that we can get out of the financial crisis that the puppet has left us in. We are also initiating an operation against terrorism,” he said.

He said the PPP believed that the way to solve the influx of crises was by forming a consensus and sitting on the negotiating table. “The same spirit of responsibility applies to the honourable judiciary as well as if.”

In his address at the National Assembly, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said “today is a historical day for the nation as on this very day in 1973, the foundation of Pakistan’s federal, democratic and Islamic Constitution was laid”.

In his speech, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif stressed that the country can be steered out of challenges by working together.

Though the allied parties will go into election on their respective manifestos, they united to salvage the country as coalition partners, remarked PM Shehbaz.

He said that each political party would run election campaign on their respective manifestos, but matter could be addressed only when there was a realization of the importance of working collectively.

PM Shehbaz also moved the resolution, through which, the Golden Jubilee Convention of the 1973 Constitution pledging to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution in letter and spirit. It also called upon the state organs to take all necessary measures to ensure its full implementation and safeguard the rights and interests of the people of Pakistan.

Addressing the Constitutional convention at the National Assembly Hall, the Prime Minister paid glowing tributes to the framers of the 1973 Constitution, including Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, saying they pursued the course of consultation instead of confrontation and gave the country the Constitution, which is keeping the federating units united.

This is such a historic achievement and will always be written in golden words, remarked the PM.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asserted that the opposition tried to save Pakistan from difficulties by using the constitutional provision a year ago, but “we did not know that the situation would be so difficult.”

He said that political leaders put aside their differences and held the discussions 50 years ago for the sake of the rule of the Constitution, justice and fairness in Pakistan.

“This is a historical achievement which will always be remembered in golden letters and the day is very important as it reminds us how the doctrine of necessity was invented in 1955 and how a Chief Justice gave 3 years without asking,” said PM Shehbaz.

“I am not saying that there are no flaws in politicians, but just as the makers of the 1973 Constitution sat together and made history, the opposition of Pakistan tried to use a provision of the Constitution a year ago to save Pakistan from difficulties,” said the PM.

He said the coalition government took up the challenges for sake of the country and it is using collective wisdom to steer the country out of quagmire.

He saluted the framers of the Constitution and congratulated the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms headed by Senator Raza Rabbani Committee and the National Assembly Speaker for holding the Convention to celebrate the 50 years of the 1973 Constitution, which kept the whole nation united despite ethnic and political diversities.

The Constitution of Pakistan is the supreme law of the land, and it defines the basic structure, functions, and powers of the state and its institutions.

The Constitution of Pakistan adopted in 1973, was drafted by a committee of 25 members under the chairmanship of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada.

The Constitution Committee of 1973 included distinguished jurists, scholars, and political leaders, who devoted their time, energy, and resources in a selfless manner for the betterment of Pakistan. The Constitution of Pakistan is a living document that embodies the principles of democracy, human rights, and rule of law.