LAHORE: Munir Ahmad Khan, who has been information secretary of the now defunct Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), says politics of personal interest and corruption damaged the PPP and not the Charter of Democracy (CoD) as is being stated by PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari.

Reacting to Mr Zardari’s statement here on Friday, Mr Khan said that as the former president had no role in the preparations of the CoD, so he was unaware of the spirit of the agreement between heads of ARD constituents, including Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, back in 2006.

From the PPP side, Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani and Safdar Abbasi had taken part in the negotiations that led to the document tagged as the most important after the 1973 Constitution in the political history of the country, while the PML-N had been represented by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra while seasoned politician late Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan had overseen all the activities.

Mr Khan, who is chairman of political think-tank National Institute for Political Education, said the CoD was about accepting each others mandate, and not supporting the “third force” to the disadvantage of political democratic forces but, he regretted, Mr Zardari’s current statements were aimed at appeasing the same third force.

He said there was no harm in opposing Nawaz Sharif in the political field but the opposition must not be taken to the level where it hurts the very democracy for which the CoD had been signed.

He alleged that after Ms Bhutto’s martyrdom, Mr Zardari only played games to reach the power corridors by hook or crook and refused to fulfill the promise of restoring the superior courts judges, sacked by Gen Musharraf, and allegedly indulging in corruption tarnishing image of the PPP.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2017