PPP has taken 180-degree turn on Zardari’s speech: Sethi

LAHORE: Senior analyst Najam Sethi on Sunday said the PPP leadership had never planned to leave the country and they selected Dubai for devising future strategy so that the consultation could not be leaked.
Expressing his views in Geo News programme ‘Aapas ki Baat’, he said Asif Ali Zardari too would soon return to the country, adding that the PPP leadership was not among those leaving the battlefield.
He said after assuming the control of party, Benazir had sidelined her mother Nusrat Bhutto and the ‘uncles’ and Bilawal too would have to repeat the same in the case of his father and the paternal aunt. The PPP chairman had matured enough to make the party leadership to listen to his views, while giving him the opportunity, he added.
According to Sethi, the only way forward for Bilawal is to control Zardari - and also his aunt - through showing dissent. The Sindh government will have to be made transparent and Bilawal is going to remain a victim unless he does so, as their corruption will become a liability for him. He needs to keep an eye for his future on what his father and aunt are doing.
The assertions of Rehman Malik have no importance. The PPP has taken a 180 degree turn on Zardari’s speech. The PPP always remained an anti-establishment party, but Malik’s love for the army shows that it has become pro-establishment.
It was not a bad thing, is if the PPP, for protecting its constitutional rights, was saying that it would not allow the Rangers to violate law, Sethi said.He said the government’s offer to provide security to Dr Tahirul Qari meant that the PML-N had learnt from the past mistakes.
According to Sethi, it is unfair to blame K-Electric for the deaths caused by heat wave in Karachi and, therefore, the federal government too is not responsible for the episode. The main culprit in this is the Sindh government, which should have taken necessary steps prior to the heat wave.
The K-Electric, being one of the best performing organisations, is not responsible for loadshedding in Karachi. The federal government cannot stop supplying 650MW of electricity to K-Electric.
He said accusing the federal government for power outages and deaths was a political tactic of the PPP, adding that all the four chief ministers should start preparing for the expected floods and the resultant damage.