File photo courtesy PPP Media Cell
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday claimed it was “written on the wall” that his party will form the next federal government after general elections.
Addressing a rally at Sukkur’s Jinnah Stadium, on Monday, he reiterated that the elections were inevitable regardless of when they occurred. “They [elections] will be held within 90 days, if not then 100 or even within 120 days,” he said. “We will have to make sure the party wins not just in Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, but also Punjab,” he urged his supporters.
The PPP chief has repeatedly called for general elections within 90 days of the dissolution of the National Assembly, claiming his party’s former ruling coalition partners are “running away” from elections. Last week, he also pushed back on a statement of his father, and PPP co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari in which he had maintained that elections can only occur after fresh delimitation following the notification of the digital census. Speaking with media, Bhutto-Zardari had maintained he was answerable to his father in matters of the home, but in matters of the politics, he was answerable to the public and his party’s central executive committee.
Exhorting supporters to push back against the narrative that the PPP didn’t deliver, he maintained that the PPP represented the common man. Referring to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), he said Sindh’s healthcare sector was proving free treatment to everyone. “There is neither a hospital in Lahore nor in Islamabad which can match NICVD Sukkur,” he said, adding that the gathered crowd should tell people that they had been voting for the same faces over the past 70 years and it was now time to give a chance to a young leader.
During his speech, the former foreign minister vowed to complete the process of provincial autonomy if the PPP were voted into power. He said some federal ministries had become redundant after the 18th Amendment and had yet to be dissolved, drawing Rs. 100 billion from the federal budget. He lamented that the bureaucracy had impeded this process. “I think the journey of devolution hasn’t completed as yet,” he said. “I promise you that if you give the federal government to the PPP, we will complete the remaining work of the provincial autonomy,” he said, adding the Rs. 100 billion save could then be spent on education and welfare projects. He stressed this was not a “hollow slogan” like those of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan.
In further criticism of the bureaucracy, he regretted that officials always sought to draw “sacrifices” from ordinary people and vowed a PPP government would not allow this. “They [bureaucrats] always say that we are passing through some hard times or that we are at some sensitive crossroads because of which the people will have to give sacrifices,” he said, vowing to ensure the elite and mafias shared in the burden.