KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has criticised the role of the country’s military establishment in the 2018 general elections and warned that any such move in coming polls of Gilgit-Baltistan would lead to a strong reaction from his party, including a siege of Islamabad and a sit-in in the city.

Though the PPP chairman has always been critical of the 2018 elections that brought the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to power at the Centre, he probably for the first time directly took exception to the role of the military establishment in the last polls and demanded a fair electoral process in the future.

“Such things were never witnessed even in dictatorships of General Zia and Gen Musharraf,” he said while addressing a press conference at Bilawal House. “I wonder how you deploy a soldier inside and another outside a polling station. That was so strange. Even if you [military establishment] have done something wrong or not, you would be blamed either way. This should not happen.”

In the same breath, he welcomed signals from the quarters concerned assuring peaceful and transparent elections in Gilgit-Baltistan. However, should the assurances fail to materialise, the PPP chairman was very clear about his party’s strategy.

“We would not allow anyone this time to steal people’s mandate in these [GB] elections,” Mr Bhutto-Zardari vowed. “If anyone tries to do so then I personally along with people of Gilgit-Baltistan would march to Islamabad. We would be on the streets of Islamabad and won’t return till justice is done. We want real democracy and will go to any extent for its restoration.”

PPP leader claims countdown of PTI govt has begun

He sounded quite sure while predicting fall of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government and when asked about any “green signal” behind the confident and aggressive campaign of the opposition parties, he came up with a broad smile and ruled out “any attempt for signals”.

“We want real democracy. What difference would be between us who want real democracy and those who are selected and elevated for the puppet government. There’s no signal but fall of Imran Khan and his puppet government is inevitable only through power of people,” he said.

He lashed out at the government and warned that those who were not afraid of dictators “will not be scared of a cricketer”. The PPP chairman said that his party had been criticising the PTI government and its facilitators since day one.

“Is this a democracy that political parties could not raise their voice in the parliament as it has been turned into a rubber-stamp,” he asked. “The media has been stopped [from criticising the government] and our interviews are censored. It’s not democracy alone, the country is failing on all fronts, including foreign and economic policy, as a selected government has been imposed on Pakistan.”

Mr Bhutto-Zardari alleged that the PTI government had adopted a policy of vengeance, saying that it had gone so far in its “revenge” that it had filed a sedition case against Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider.

“The country can no longer bear the burden of this government,” the PPP chief said. “This government oppresses the people every day through new tactics. Where will the people go? The people are helpless due to the current regime’s policies. Such an authoritarian regime cannot last. The countdown has begun.”

To a query about the federal government’s Pakistan Island Development Authority Ordinance, he said that no Pakistani who believed in the Constitution could tolerate that someone, through a presidential ordinance, tried to take over the islands of Balochistan and Sindh overnight.

“We strongly condemn this act,” he said. “We demand immediate withdrawal of this unconstitutional ordinance. Through such immature acts of a cricketer, the federation has been damaged. Whole province [of Sindh] has unanimously rejected the ordinance. We will not allow you to take a single piece of land through an unconstitutional ordinance.”

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2020