Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari yesterday called upon Prime Minister Imran Khan to resign latest by January 31st next year, failing which he pledged to hit the road and converge on Islamabad to force him to do so.
“If [PM] Imran does not resign by January 31 then we will march on Islamabad,” he thundered during a speech where he asked his supporters to be ready to endure “baton-charge” and “other forms of intimidation” by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
Bilawal was addressing a large crowd here at the 13th death anniversary of his mother Benazir Bhutto, the two-time former prime minister who was assassinated on December 27, 2007 following a public meeting in the garrison city of Rawalpindi during a gruelling election campaign where she had already survived one such attempt a month earlier in Karachi.
Garhi Khuda Bux is the ancestral graveyard of the Bhuttos, Pakistan’s predominant political dynasty. The PPP organises an annual public meeting here to pay homage to Benazir, whose father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was Pakistan’s first popularly elected prime minister.
Scion Bilawal, 32, is one of the frontline leaders of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an 11-party opposition alliance, which is campaigning to bring down the government of Khan, who it accuses of coming into power through a manipulated election in 2018.
Khan denies the charge and alleges that the PDM is a motley crowd of political parties trying to seek a waiver from him by using pressure tactics in order to protect their “looted wealth” whilst in power before he swept into power.
Bilawal alleged that owing to the PTI government’s “anti-people” policies, millions of people were forced to live below the poverty line and couldn’t afford two meals a day, while youngsters were desperate to find jobs.
“The rulers neither see your poverty nor your unemployment nor the storm of inflation,” the PPP chairperson said. “He cannot provide bread and employment to people and says ‘I won’t spare anyone.’ But now the people fed up of unemployment, poverty and inflation will not spare him,” he said.
“Enough has happened. If this government is given more time they will wreck the country and we won’t let it happen. These selected rulers will also be in the wastebasket of history like (military strongmen) Musharraf and Zia,” the PPP leader said before vowing to bring the curtains on it.
“Now this game will end. The business of selected and selection will end,” he said in a veiled reference to the military establishment, which the PDM regularly targets as the force behind the 2018 election.
In a departure from previous annual party gatherings at Benazir’s death anniversary here, other leaders of the PDM, notably Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) vice president, was also invited.
An erstwhile rival of the Bhuttos, the Sharif scion, took the mike to drive home solidarity with a typically aggressive speech targeting the incumbent prime minister.
“Your war is not with PDM but with the 220 million people of Pakistan whom you have struck like lightning,” she Maryam said referring to Prime Minister Khan, before declaring that the people had “won” this war.
She said when Bilawal was unable to attend the PDM rally in Mardan, last month, Khan was “jumping around with elation” believing there had been a rift within the opposition. She alleged he will say the same about today’s rally which PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a bitter critic of Khan, did not attend.
Making light of Khan’s dismissal of her and Bilawal as “kids”, the PML-N vice-president said: “These kids are half your age but they are giving you sleepless nights.”
Asif Zardari, former president and PPP Co-chairman, also addressed the gathering via video link.
“The PTI government was unable to run the country and it would remain so. These aren’t folks who run a country, they are ones who run a cricket team,” the ailing leader said in reference to Khan, who famously led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 cricket World Cup.
“But I want you not to worry so much, they have little time left. They will fall on their own weight,” the PPP leader predicted.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari waving to party supporters at the annual homage to his mother and late prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Larkana yesterday. Also seen in a face mask on the right is PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
