President Zardari Vows to Fight Back

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari Saturday said the PPP will use democracy and constitutionalism as its weapons to fight its adversaries and foil all conspiracies against it.

Zardari said this while addressing the concluding session of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party in the Presidency late night Saturday.

The CEC of the party not only reposed full confidence in President’s leadership – who also co-chairs the party – but also vowed to rally around him at time when he is the target of criticism and political attacks from all around and to put up a fierce fight in his defence.

Briefing the newsmen the spokesperson to the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the Co-Chairman of the PPP also categorically stated that the PPP will not be blackmailed into asking its ministers to resign merely on the basis of accusations against them.

“None of accusations had been proved during more than a decade of witch hunting and there is no reason why anyone should resign until proved guilty of wrong doing,” Zardari was quoted as saying.

The President said that despite hurdles created in its way the PPP will continue its forward march to strengthen democracy and emancipate the poor and the downtrodden and will not be deterred by conspiracies against it.

President Zardari said that the party survived even after the judicial murder of its founder Chairman and the country’s first directly-elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The President said that the party also survived the assassination of its Chairperson Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto two years ago.

“We have faced many challenges in the past and are ready to face even more challenges in the future but will not abandon the fight nor run away from the field.”

Zardari said he foresaw many more conspiracies and onslaughts against the PPP and added that none of the conspiracies will be allowed to succeed. He said that individuals in some institutions may have wronged the PPP but “we will not harm the institution to avenge wrong doing by any of its member.”

PPP is a party that gave the country unanimous Constitution, the mother of all institutions, and it will protect and strengthen state institutions at all cost, the President observed.

He said that the PPP was the party of the masses from Khyber to Karachi and from Bolan to Gilgit-Baltistan, to Azad Kashmir and to tribal areas and as a party of the federation will protect and defend the federation at all cost.

The government was fast moving towards finalizing the Constitutional reforms and the credit for this will also goes to the PPP in the same way as it is credited for the NFC Award, the G-B reforms, the forward movement on FCR and the Benazir Income Support Program, Farhatullah Babar quoted the President as saying.

President Zardari said that he was inspired by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s historic remarks that he would rather die at the hand of dictators than be killed by history. This is the compass of my life too, he said.