the “uncles” of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed and “Uncles” of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as those uncles which were with
Benazir Bhutto had their own political agendas and all of them after the martyrdom of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto formed their party. But the case of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was different as none of his Uncles had any personal political agenda.
Responding to a question on the second phase of local bodies (LB) elections in Punjab and Sindh, the opposition leader said the results of first phase would also reflect in the second and third phases as in these elections the ruling party had always an advantage.
Asked whether the political decline of PTI had started in Punjab on the basis of its performance in the LB elections, he said the PTI’s political graph started to decline in Punjab but at the same time the popularity graph of PML-N had declined as independent members got elected in the Punjab in a greater number.
But when he was asked about the performance of the PPP in Punjab as it seemed that the PPP was washed out from there, the opposition leader said the PPP had an image problem in Punjab as some of its leaders thought that the people were annoyed with the PPP so they opted to contest the election as independent candidates.
In response to a question, he said the Constitution made the prime minister a powerful chief executive of the state and if he did not use his powers, the Constitution would be weakened.
On the issue of the governance, he said the impression was wrong that only civilian governance was weak as there was a need for an improvement in the governance in all the institutions of the country and even the situation was not good in the lower judiciary.
He said the main cause of bad governance was ‘one man show’ that was introduced in the dictatorship as the country was ruled more than 50 years through dictatorships and controlled democracy. “The only solution of bringing a better governance is only democracy and more democracy in which elections are continuously held on its time and all the institutions work under their constitutional ambit,” he added.
To a question of bringing a change in the NAB laws, the opposition leader said there was a need to bring changes in the accountability laws and in his personal view the concept of the plea bargain was a crime that should be deleted from the law.
In reply to a question of ban by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on election campaigning by the parliamentarians, he said it was strange and astonishing that the ECP had imposed a ban on politicians to campaign in political elections. “When candidates are contesting the elections on party tickets, how is it possible that politicians from the same party should not campaign for their candidates in a political election,” he remarked.