ISLAMABAD: With the political impasse entering third week, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari has decided to stay in the federal capital and play a role for resolving the crisis created by the situation prevailing in Islamabad.

Sources in the PPP told Dawn that Mr Zardari, who returned from China on Monday, was due to arrive in Islamabad on Wednesday (today) from Karachi.

According to them, he will stay at his residence in F-8/2 sector where he plans to hold meetings with leaders of the PPP and other political parties in a bid to defuse tension, which has gripped the country in the wake of the indefinite sit-ins of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT).

Demanding resignations of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif over alleged rigging in the last year’s general elections and killing of 14 PAT activists in Lahore in June, PTI chief Imran Khan and PAT chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri have been leading protests in Islamabad since Aug 15.

Former president plans meetings with leaders of different political parties

Despite being part of the opposition, Mr Zardari’s PPP is supporting the PML-N government because, it says, it wants to save democracy.

According to the PPP co-chairman’s spokesman Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar, Mr Zardari called different political leaders on Tuesday after the joint sitting of parliament.

He discussed the Islamabad situation with Jamaat Islami chief Sirajul Haq, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party head Mehmood Khan Achakzai and PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervez Elahi.

Mr Zardari also talked to PTI president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who had earlier announced his resignation from the National Assembly in his speech during the joint session of parliament, alleging that Imran Khan had deviated from the original plan of PTI protest.

The PPP leader had met the prime minister at his Raiwind residence on August 23 and advised him to handle the crisis politically as democracy should not be derailed under any circumstances.

He had also met Sirajul Haq and PML-Q leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervez Elahi the same day.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2014