LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party has asked Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza to clarify her statement that sparked a controversy over former president Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to the United States.

Ms Raza said Mr Zardari had proceeded to the US to remind the Americans of their “past promises to protect democracy” in Pakistan. She had also disclosed in a private TV talk show that it had been agreed under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) during the Musharraf era that no martial law would be imposed till three general elections in the country.

“The party had asked Shehla Raza about her controversial statement. She told me that her statement was distorted and presented out of context,” PPP Secretary-General Sardar Latif Khosa told Dawn here on Thursday. Dismissing the PPP’s involvement in any deal to protect democracy in the country, Mr Khosa said martial law did not require permission from any quarter.

No martial law until three elections after NRO: Shehla Raza

“It is ridiculous to say the PPP was part of any deal under the NRO with foreign forces that martial law would not be imposed for 15 years in Pakistan. The PPP does not believe in involving any foreign force in the affairs of our country. Military takeover does not need permission from any foreign guarantor,” he said, adding the PPP would not become part of any design to derail democracy in the country.

About Zardari’s tour of the US, the PPP secretary general further said: “Zardari remained the head of the state and being a high-profile personage he was meeting the top US leadership of the Obama administration. He has not gone there to prevent martial law in Pakistan.”

“Why Mr Zardari needs to seek help from the Americans for the Nawaz-government,” he wondered.

Mr Khosa said the PPP was in favour of the change of the government through constitutional means.

However, it was strictly against the move to set up monarchy in the country in the name of democracy. “We will not allow Nawaz Sharif to become a monarch,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 254th, 2014