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PPP denies Zardari’s return harmful to reconciliation

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) denounced on Saturday the statement of Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed that Asif Ali Zardari’s return to Pakistan on April 16 could undermine the possibility of broad-based reconciliation with political parties.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim, PPP vice-chairman, said that on the one hand the regime claimed that it was working for a broad-based reconciliation with democratic political parties and on the other hand it was stopping the PPP from holding its political activities.

He said that political meetings and public interaction was a basic democratic and constitutional right of the parties. “Religious parties and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan Muslim League are holding rallies, public meetings and million marches. How can the democratic parties be denied this right?” he questioned.

He said that the government had withdrawn cases against those political leaders who had dropped the demand for democracy or had joined the regime’s bandwagon, while parties like the PPP were still being hounded in the name of accountability. “Now these parties are asked not even to speak in public in support of democracy, constitutionalism and rule of law,” he remarked. The PPP leader said that last week the minister had said that that there was no pressure on the regime for reconciliation with the PPP. “Now to prove his point, the PPP is being stopped from carrying out its normal political activities,” Fahim said.

He said that the rulers had made their intentions known to the people by not yielding to democratic norms and insisting on punishing the PPP through measures such as the breaking up of PPP’s stronghold districts and persecution of the party leadership through politically motivated NAB.

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