Will ask Zardari to untie hands if level playing field not provided: Bilawal

OKARA: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Monday said he would only be able to comment on making “alliances” with other political parties once the election schedule was announced.

Addressing a press conference here, he yet again demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announce the election date so that his party could commence its election campaign accordingly.

“It is our request to the ECP to announce the election schedule,” the PPP chief said, reports Geo News. Expressing his views on the expected return of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PMLN) Quaid Nawaz Sharif’s, Bilawal said, “Mian Sahib’s return has been a long-standing demand of the PPP.”

He also categorically refuted the rumors that the PPP was being pushed to the wall. “The PPP is not being pushed to the wall [...] we didn’t even back out from the 2007-8 elections,” the party chairman also said.

With regard to the issue of a “level playing field”, Bilawal said, “Former president Asif Ali Zardari has been tasked with addressing the party’s reservations with regard to the level playing field.”

He said that if level playing field was not provided, he would ask the former president to untie his (Bilawal’s) hands (to let him handle situation his own way).

Separately, Bilawal conveyed his “best wishes” to the newly-appointed Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Qazi Faez Isa. He also lauded the CJP’s gesture of inviting his wife, Sarina Isa, on the stage during the oath-taking ceremony held at the President House on Sunday.

It is pertinent to know that the PPP chief has repeatedly echoed the demand of his party’s central executive committee’s (CEC) for an “immediate announcement of the election date and schedule”.

Last week, following his party’s CEC meeting, Bilawal read out the resolution passed by his party that stressed the need for the announcement of the poll date for “dampening down the cycle of chronic political instability”.