2020 will be the year of masses’ rule: Bilawal

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari lashed out at the government on Friday, saying the “puppet regime of political orphans” was crumbling and 2020 will be the year of masses’ rule and New Year will be the election year.

Addressing a rally at Liaquat Bagh to mark the 12th anniversary of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto here, he said: “Liberty is under threat and struggle on this occasion is a debt on us and it is our duty. We have to complete the mission of late Benazir Bhutto. We will send packing political orphans and selected.”

The PPP leader said the “political orphans” should see that Mian (Nawaz Sharif) Sahib and Asif Ali Zardari had come out of jails. “The rule of the selected is shaking and due to this the democracy and liberty is under threat,” he said, adding the “political orphans” could not run the country. He went on to say that the sovereignty of the country had been put at stake. The PPP leader said he would complete the unfinished mission of Benazir and ensure that people were given their rights. He said the political orphans were ruling over Pakistan hence there was a leadership and economic crisis in the country.

Bilawal urged the masses to support him in ousting this government of “selected and political orphans” as the people’s rule cannot be established without the PPP.

The PPP chairman praised his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by crediting him with giving rights to the labourers when he was prime minister. Bilawal said his mother had fought two dictators during her lifetime and never backed down from anyone. Bilawal said the credit went to Benazir Bhutto for providing Pakistan with the much needed missile technology. He said the slain PPP leader had come back to Pakistan before her assassination to ensure democracy thrived in the country.

He also lashed out at the government for removing more than 800,000 beneficiaries from the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), terming the move a grave cruelty on the part of the government. “This is not the independence that Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave us. We will build the Pakistan that Benazir envisaged for you.”

Bilawal said the country was in danger and it was the duty of his party to complete the mission of Benazir Bhutto, who was a chain that united the federation of Pakistan but this was not acceptable to her enemies.

“Look at the state of this democracy. The parliament is locked, media is not free, there are attacks on the 18th Amendment, the judiciary is not free,” lamented the PPP chairman. “Terrorists may have been defeated but extremism is present all over the country,” he added.