Zardari to contest election from native Nawabshah constituency

KARACHI: The President Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians, Asif Ali Zardari, has said winning the majority of electoral seats in the forthcoming general elections will remain an elusive dream for Imran Khan.

Talking to newsmen informally here on Saturday at an Iftar-dinner hosted by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at the Chief Minister's House, the former president said none of the contesting political parties would secure a majority in the next general elections. The former president said “we have to strengthen the Election Commission. We hope this time there would not be any RO elections. The Election Commission could come up to the expectations of people by holding the elections in a clean and transparent manner,” he said.

Zardari also announced to contest the forthcoming general elections from his native constituency in Nawabshah, meaning his return to the electoral and parliamentary politics after a gap of 24 years. The former president said he could have chosen Lyari as his electoral constituency but later decided in favour of the constituency from his native town. He said he would contest the forthcoming general elections from all over the country.

He said the political parties and democracy could prove to be the ultimate cure for terrorism in the country. He said the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is in favour of Pakistan and would benefit its people, but certain people are opposing it for their own vested interests. He said the merger of FATA has been done in accordance with the thinking of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.

He said politics had started in FATA during the era of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He said the late Benazir Bhutto wanted to merge FATA with the then NWFP within a span of ten years. He said the late Benazir Bhutto had even moved the apex judiciary for the merger of FATA with the rest of the country.

He said “when he was the president, he convened a jirga of FATA elders to evolve consensus over its merger,” said the former president.