Zardari urges all institutions to work within limits

ISLAMABAD: Former President and President Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians Asif Ali Zardari on Friday called upon all institutions to work within their constitutional limits and said that overstepping of constitutional limits was threat to democracy.

“In addition to rule of law, transparency, across the board accountability and tolerance of dissent democracy also called for respecting constitutional limits by all institutions,” he said in a statement on Friday on the eve of the International Democracy Day, which is being observed today (Saturday).

The former President said threats to democracy have changed with time as there was a time when democracy was directly assaulted and this assault protected by devices like doctrine of necessity, the Legal Framework Orders (LFOs), Provisional Constitutional Orders (PCOs) upheld by PCO judges. “The nature of threats to democracy has changed overtime,” he said.

Zardari said the Democracy is under threat from the militants and extremists who wish to impose their agenda by force and not through Parliament. “The celebrations today should also enhance peoples' awareness of the new forms of threats to democracy and the need to guard against them,” he said.

The former president also paid glowing tributes to Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto as icons of democracy and countless political leaders and workers belonging to different political parties who rendered huge sacrifices for the cause of democracy.