Bureau Report
LAHORE: Former president and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari on Sunday warned that the PTI-led regime is likely to “make a huge blunder”, putting Pakistan “in grave danger”.
Speaking to the secretary-general of the PPP’s Punjab chapter, Chaudhry Manzoor, during a phone call, Asif Zardari said the Opposition parties’ coalition under the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) banner “is united and will strike the government from all directions”.
“The PDM will use all options in turn to get rid of the PTI government,” he said. “The country is in grave danger and the (incumbent) rulers are likely to make a huge blunder,” the former president said, adding that it is “crucial to send the government packing”.
“The incompetence of these inept rulers may lead to a major accident in the country (and therefore) the next few months are crucial for the future of national politics.”
Speaking of the ongoing pandemic, the PPP leader whose son and party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari contracted COVID-19 in November 2020 and recovered a month later stressed that the Khan administration would “no longer be allowed to hide behind coronavirus”. “They (govt) could neither purchase the coronavirus vaccine nor could they help people during the coronavirus pandemic,” he stated. Comparing the PTI regime to his own government, Asif Zardari cited the Great Recession and said: “We increased exports from $19 billion to $26 billion despite the 2008 global financial crisis.”
“We doubled the country’s revenue, increased the salaries of employees by 125%. We bumped up government employees’ pensions by 100%,” he added. Slamming the “incompetent” PTI government, he said that the rulers had “turned all indicators negative”. “I said in the past that these elected rulers will fall under their own weight. Now that they have crashed, only one last shove is needed.”
