Zardari demands financial emergency, Dar’s resignation

PESHAWAR: Former president Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday said that financial emergency should be imposed in view of the weak economic situation in the country and demanded Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar to step down.

He said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) always ruined the economy whenever it came to power and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy. Despite all this, he said Nawaz Sharif still did not know why he was ousted.

Addressing a news conference at the residence of his party's provincial president Humayun Khan, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairman said if the country was weakening economically, there must have been someone responsible and someone would have to pay for it in the future. He said the finance minister was demanding financial emergency now.

Comparing the PML-N government's performance with his party-led government, Asif Zardari recalled that they had increased the remittances from $9 billion to $13 billion and exports to $30 billion, provided jobs to people, but the PML-N snatched jobs from the poor. He said the PPP again provided jobs to them after fighting their cases in the courts. 

Coming down hard on PML-N and PTI for providing electricity transformers, gas and solar panel systems before the by-election in constituency NA-4, Asif Zardari said that the rulers should have completed these projects before the election. The same was the case with the by-election in NA-120 but they were happy that the rulers had solved some of the people's problems.

He said his party had always contested election on the slogan of "Roti, Kapra Aur Makan" and would follow the same policy in future. Supporting the merger of Fata with Khyber
 Pakhtunkhwa, he said that they would provide special war package for tribal areas after coming into power. "We would provide jobs to tribal youth  besides completing developmental projects in those neglected areas," he added.

Asif Zardari said the so-called champion of change, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), could not generate single megawatt of electricity despite having the resources, but simply made tall claims. He said that the PTI government could not change the situation in the home district of its own Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak. "How can they change the province or the country?" he questioned.

To a question, Zardari said that former president general (R) Pervez Musharraf, accused of the murder of Benazir Bhutto, should have faced the courts instead of running away from the country, if he was a real commando.

He suggested the reporter to read page 250 of his book, wherein Pervez Musharraf himself had written about an attack. He posed a question why the site where Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, was washed away. He said he had no contacts with the then Afghan president Hamid Karzai before his election as president. 

The PPP president recalled that a judge had  expelled former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani but he did not come out on the roads but Nawaz Sharif was pretending to be unaware of his crime. He said Nawaz Sharif should not have left the office if he was innocent. Zardari said his party had even accepted results of those fake elections for strengthening democracy.

Regarding the participation of candidates from banned organisations in the elections, he said that many religious parties were contesting polls but this new trend would not be in favour of the nation and country.