by Omer Farooq Khan in Times of India, dec 28, 2020 at 11.30 PM IST
ISLAMABAD: The gulf between Pakistan’s government and opposition has widened, with the 11-party united opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) reiterating its threats of a long march on Islamabad if Prime Minister Imran Khan fails to step down by January 31.
To mark the 13th death anniversary of former PM Benazir Bhutto in Garhi Khuda Bux in Larkana, Sindh province, on Sunday, PDM politicians, in a new power show, had gathered to address a public gathering of thousands.
Opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari promised that if Khan did not resign, “jiyalas (PPP loyalists)” would “drag him off his seat”. Recounting his family’s struggle for democratic rule in Pakistan, Bhutto-Zardari said they had “sacrificed” their lives in the service of the people. “Benazir is alive today in the hearts of everyone, and those who clashed with her, their names are forgotten,” he said, specifically citing former military dictators Gen Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf.
“If the opposition calls for a long march, you have to be ready. We are on the same page and on the same stage,” he said, seemingly in direct response to government claims that the alliance was breaking over whether or not to resign from the provincial assemblies.
In an address via video-link, ex-president Asif Ali Zardari attacked PM Khan and his team’s poor governance. “It takes a different mindset to run a country than to run a cricket team and these people do not possess it,” he said, adding that the government would collapse under its own weight if it did not have the support of the “selectors” (a reference to the powerful military establishment).
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice-president Maryam Nawaz said those (military establishment) who brought Imran Khan into power will have to step back. Lambasting the “selected government” of PM Khan, she said, “When political parties started completing their terms, some forces (army and ISI) to whom ‘divide and rule’ suited, started getting restless. Then we saw former ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha set up a party by collecting political trash named the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, and that party was then used in dharnas and conspiracies against your elected government.”
She said politicians were given death sentences and faced character assassination, but those who committed much severer offences, such as “breaking the country (separation of East Pakistan) and the constitution, losing Siachen and the Kashmir cause, violating one’s oath to interfere in politics, having political rivals killed, and committing corruption worth billions” were not held accountable.
The gathering was also addressed by leaders of nationalist parties from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtukhwa.
Reacting, PM Imran Khan said on Monday that politicians pointing fingers at state institutions could never be considered flag-bearers of democracy. His cabinet members also censured the opposition for criticising the Pakistan army at a public gathering at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/gulf-between-pakistan-govt-opposition-widens/articleshowprint/79998039.cms
