Elections will be held after reforms: Asif Zardari

Elections will be held after reforms: Asif Zardari

KARACHI (Dunya News) – Former president and Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Wednesday that for the first time in the history, the country’s institutions have not been interfering in politics and the Army has taken an oath not to interfere politically.

Addressing a press conference at Sindh CM House in Karachi on Wednesday along with CM Murad Ali Shah and provincial minister Sharjeel Memon, he said that he was speaking after consultation with former PM and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif. He said at present, oil is expensive in the country and the government do not want to increase the price of oil.

The former president said, “Our game plan includes electoral and NAB reforms, adding that if elections are held before reforms, then any government that comes into powers will face the issues that the past and present regimes are facing.”

Asif Zardari said that the elections will be held after electoral reforms.

“We have to change laws and improve them and then go to elections. Whether it takes 3 or 4 months, we have to work on implementation of policies and improving the electoral process,” Zardari said.

The PPP co-chairman went on to say that he had talked to the PML-N supremo and made him understand that we can go to polls as soon as electoral reforms complete.

Regarding PTI’s criticism on government’s plan to roll back the Overseas Pakistani’s voting rights, he said the government has no such plan. “We are ready to allocate reserve seats for Overseas Pakistanis, like that of minorities and women, in the [National] Assembly,” Zardari said.

Asif Zardari further said: “Whether I should salute [COAS Qamar Javed] Bajwa for being apolitical or I should fight with him.” “We came to know about it [Army’s apolitical role in the politics of the country] for the first time,” said Zardari, adding the Army took oath in the Constitution for this role.

"The government will need to think about out of the box solutions," he said. "State Life Insurance, for example, is an entity with a net value of over Rs100 billion. If you float 26 per cent of government shares, you can generate billions quite easily," he said.

The country is facing a difficult situation due to the International Monetary Fund’s tough conditions, he added.

To a question, he said that the cipher message about the American threat is a political drama, adding that he had not read the communique sent by the then Pakistan ambassador to Washington.

Asif Zardari said there might be a cipher message but it probably didn t come from the state, adding that US President Joe Biden is his friend and he would have telephoned him if there was such thing. “There is no such thing, Imran Khan has created this himself and we have to fix our policies.”

Watch complete press conference