KARACHI, Jan 27: Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has warned that any manipulation in Feb 18 elections will be tantamount to tearing the country apart and the people themselves will foil all such attempts of the ‘local Gorbachev’.

Addressing a joint meeting of PPP’s Central Executive Committee, Federal Council, Sindh Council and the party’s candidates from Sindh at the Bilawal House on Sunday, Mr Zardari paid tribute to Benazir Bhutto’s wisdom, bravery, intuition, leadership and martyrdom.

He said that Ms Bhutto had the intuition about her martyrdom and defeated the dictatorial and evil forces of the country by sacrificing her life. “Today the people consider Benazir as an angel and worship her political wisdom. She raised the stature of politicians and forced even the dictator of the day to declare her a martyr.”

He urged the people to transform their grief into strength and avenge the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto by defeating the plan to manipulate polls on Feb 18.

He said that Benazir’s will which was a command for the party would be made part of the Shaheed chairperson’s book.

He asked party leaders to foil the rigging plans and said that the dictatorship would crumble before the people’s power.

He said markets around the world had come to a standstill after Ms Bhutto’s murder.

He said the initial 28-month of his imprisonment had been difficult since it was his first such experience, but added that he had drawn strength from Ms Bhutto’s last meeting with her father Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before he was hanged. “I see the sepoy refusing to open the door for future prime minister Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto to meet her father and former prime minister of Pakistan Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,” he added.

And now, he said, even the common man was speaking the words of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

He said he desired to be buried in Garhi Khuda Bux if he too embraced martyrdom while striving to accomplish the mission of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. He authorised all party leaders, workers and the people of Pakistan to stop him if he ever drifted away from Ms Bhutto’s mission and said that he would have no right to be buried in Garhi Khuda Bux if he did not honestly carry out the mission.

Earlier, PPP Deputy secretary-general and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said that no other political party in the world had the distinction of having two of its successive chairpersons sacrificing their lives for the country, the party and its people.

PPP Sindh president Syed Qaim Ali Shah gave guidelines to party leaders and candidates for stopping rigging during and before the polls. Sindh information secretary Dr Fehmida Mirza said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto were not just personalities but ideologies personified.

Addressing relatives of the people who lost their lives or suffered injuries in the Oct 18 attack, Mr Zardari said democracy was people’s birth right and no one could deprive them of their fundamental rights. He said the PPP would continue its fight for restoration of democracy as envisioned by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid–i-Awam Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. He said Ms Bhutto had returned from exile to save the country, adding that the ‘political orphans and Pakistani Gorbachev’ did not know that the PPP would not hesitate from rendering the biggest of sacrifices.