KARACHI, April 20: Chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party Ms Benazir Bhutto has claimed that the mass mobilization of the party cadre for receiving Asif Ali Zardari on April 16 was a clear message to the rulers that people want emancipation from misery, suffering, hunger, unemployment and inflation.

In a statement issued from Bilawal House here, Ms Bhutto commended party workers for enduring all obstacles to reach Lahore to welcome their leader, and said that the manner in which the regime had acted on the occasion only demonstrated how much it feared the PPP workers. “Days of the regime are numbered,” she remarked.

She said that Mr Zardari returned to Pakistan, despite being kept in jail for eight years, to demonstrate solidarity with people in their search for freedom and emancipation from dictatorship, poverty, backwardness and hunger.

She criticized the authorities for resorting to brutal measures of repression and suppression. The authorities have damaged the image of Pakistan internationally by resorting to pushing women and men into police vans after beating up them.

Ms Bhutto said that Asif Zardari’s return had less to do with the return of a leading political figure and more to do with the democratic rights of the people.

The regime, she said, was falsely claiming that democracy had been restored. The return of Mr Zardari was to put on test whether the democratic values of freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of political association were there in Pakistan.

This parliamentary system, she stressed, was not based on the will of the people or their mandate, but on the use of brute force against PPP workers by hidden forces which had exposed the government’s claims of enjoying support from liberal forces and working for the establishment of an enlightened society.

The intolerant, immoderate and extremist reaction to a peaceful political rally clearly demonstrated that the regime was incapable of defending the values of enlightenment, she added.

Referring to the government’s claim that it was not conspiring with the MMA to blackmail the world community to force the latter to accept the military dictatorship or face the religious take over, Ms Bhutto said, however, the way it reacted to Mr Zardari’s return demonstrated that the regime was indeed conspiring to allow the MMA political freedom and deny the same to the moderate opposition. “It is a dangerous policy that may backfire on the nation just as support to extremist elements among Afghan Mujahideen had backfired and led to the emergence of Taliban and Al Qaeda,” she observed.

She also made mention of the government’s claim that it was working for reconciliation and under this policy a level-playing field would be allowed to all political parties.

However, she lamented, the PPP had legitimate grievance that it was being denied the political space being allowed to the MMA, the ruling PML and the others who were freely holding meetings and rallies, taking out processions and transporting their supporters from different parts of the country.

She pointed out that the regime had refused to grant permission to the plane that was chartered to bring Mr Zardari back to Pakistan even after it had put up tents in jails to keep tens of thousands of arrested political workers.

Mr Zardari had to fly by a scheduled plane and there was, thus, a change in his schedule of arrival, she said, adding that the government had refused to accept the schedule in order to create confusion of Mr Zardari’s arrival time and sabotage the welcome reception.

Declaring that the PPP would continue with its peaceful political struggle and, Ms Bhutto asked: “How many rallies can the authorities break; how many people can they detain; and how many processions can they stop without exposing their inability to implement law and provide political freedom?”

The authorities’ reaction showed that they were not capable to govern the country or give it stability, she said.