Islamabad, Jan 12: Murdered former Pakistan premier
Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari has said he thinks
recent terrorist attacks in the country are part of efforts to
either rig or postpone next month's parliamentary polls.
"I consider (the attacks) a part of the rigging campaign.
I consider this a part of the harassment campaign so that
people would not come out in mass numbers to vote," he said.
"This is a way of again diverting people's attention and
trying to either postpone the elections or making sure that
the (ruling PML-Q) wins," Zardari told the 'Voice of America'.
Zardari said the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), of which
he is the co-chairman, was yet to decide on a prime
ministerial candidate or on the issue of forming a government
in alliance with former premier Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party
after the February 18 general election.
"I am not running personally for the National Assembly
(Lower House of Parliament). The constitution of Pakistan says
only a member of the National Assembly can become the Prime
Minister," he said. The PPP will decide on a prime ministerial
candidate "when the time comes and when we win a victory".
He said, "at the moment, we have Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
as our candidate for prime ministership." Zardari was
appointed co-chairman and his teenage son Bilawal the Chairman
of the PPP three days after Bhutto was assassinated
in Rawalpindi on December 27.
Asked about forming a government in alliance with Sharif,
Zardari said, "the PPP is hoping to come to governance and
have a national consensus government...It's too premature to
talk about now but its an already foregone conclusion that the
PPP in its collective wisdom intends to make a national
consensus government."
Zardari said he was in touch with Sharif regularly to
discuss political developments and the stands their parties
should take on various issues.
He also said the PPP did not "trust" the probe being
conducted into Bhutto's assassination by the Pakistan
government with the help of Britain's Scotland Yard. "We
respect Scotland Yard but it is under the supervision of the
Pakistan government whom we do not trust in this
investigation."
Zardari said the top leadership of the PPP had decided to
appoint 19-year-old Bilawal the new chairman of the party. "I
did not name him. The whole central executive committee named
him. All of the colleagues of my late wife named him.
"We collectively thought we wanted a future leader to
give the young people of Pakistan hope because as you know
nations don't die with plague and calamities. A nation dies
when there is no hope. So he is the hope for the future and
the youth of Pakistan."
Zardari admitted that the legacy of the Bhutto family had
influenced the PPP's decision. "I would not say that the
Bhutto name does not carry its weight. Of course, it does. But
people in the west do not understand the politics of south
Asia and the sacrifice that each family has given, whether
it's the Indira Gandhi family, the Nehru family or the
Bandaranaike family or the Bangladesh families in politics,"
he said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008, 00:00