PPP can form electoral alliance with Imran if need arises: Zardari

LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said an alliance was formed with Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to meet a need during the Senate elections. “And if the need arises, an electoral alliance can be formed again in general elections,” he said, while talking to the media at the residence of former federal minister and PPP Lahore President Samina Khalid Ghurki. The former president had gone to the residence of Samina Ghurki to express condolences over the death of her mother.

Zardari said if the People’s Party could not form the government, it would sit on the opposition benches. He said the PPP had braved all kinds of situations; it had remained in governments, out of governments, and faced hardships in dictatorial eras. He said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto sacrificed their lives for the sake of democracy, adding that democracy was an ideology and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had nothing to do with it. He said what Nawaz had done with democracy and the country was nothing less than a tragedy. Zardari said that Nawaz Sharif knows the ‘aliens’ very well as he himself had been their product. These ‘aliens’ extended Nawaz all help against the PPP in the past. “Mian Sahib should describe what he means by aliens as he has been using this term since 1988. All aliens have moved along with him [Nawaz],” Zardari stressed. He said in the Changa Manga episode, Gen Hamid Gul and other ‘actors’ were with him. In 1988, he said that Nawaz was part of the alliance against the PPP.

To a question regarding Nadim Afzal Chan, who recently joined the PTI, Zardari said he wasn’t a born jiala. He also said that Bilawal and his politics were different as his son was 29 years old, whereas he himself was in 60s now.

To another question, he said elections would be held on time and must be held on time at any cost. The former president said that his statements had been misinterpreted in media sections.

Agencies add: “They haven’t seen the Prime Minister’s House…They are in a hurry,” said Zardari making an indirect jibe at the PTI.

Zardari said it was his opinion that general elections would be held on time. “I know it is hot and Ramzan is approaching, but we had similar conditions earlier too and elections were held on schedule,” he said. Zardari said that Nawaz Sharif had weakened democracy and it was vulnerable in these times.

The PPP has always struggled for the sake of democracy. “Nawaz turned into Prince Saleem and became our undoing,” he added.