LAHORE: President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared today [Oct 6] that he stood for a parliamentary system which could provide a safeguard against the frequent changes of the governments, as the country could ill afford such changes. The Westminster-style parliamentary system, which had been tried in the past and had proved to be a failure, could not be adopted in this country, as a constitutional breakdown would mean “the last disaster”. The country would, therefore, have to take a lead from the history of its first 10 years, if democracy was to be given a chance to flourish, he added.

President Bhutto was addressing a meeting of his party workers at Gulshan-i-Fatima in Bagh-i-Jinnah. In his 90-minute address he dealt at length with the internal and external problems facing the country.

Making an oblique reference to the frequent crossing of the floor in the pre-1958 period, he said some members took oath on the Quran in the morning and shifted their loyalty in the evening. … Although Mr Bhutto did not say anything in so many words, what one could gather from his speech today was that the President wanted some sort of stability through making “the crossing of the floor in any form unlawful.”

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2022