Gear up, it's time to send leaders home: Zardari

LARKANA: Former president Asif Ali Zardari said Thursday the people of Pakistan should gear up for the time to send home those in power had come.

Addressing an event to commemorate late Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder and ex-prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's 40th death anniversary here in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, Zardari said he doubted the intentions of the incumbent leadership.

"They just want to do away with our 18th Amendment," he told a large number of PPP leaders, activists, and supporters in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.

"'Yesterday', their ministers used to say they would not roll back the 18th Amendment but, today, they are about to do so."

The PPP co-chair said the time has come to set the direction towards Islamabad and force them out of the capital city. "Ever since they've come into power, the dollar has risen Rs40 and everything has just become more expensive.

"A poor man cannot live their life given the high prices at present," he stressed.

Zardari mentioned that it did not matter if he was in jail or not but what was crucial was that the PPP will force the current government out. "We cannot give them any more time, we have to get them out of the government," he told supporters and admirers.

"I have no desire for leading the government but these people [the incumbent leadership] have set Pakistan back 50 years; if they stay, the country will go back 100 years," he underscored, adding that there was no other way to get rid of "these people".

Referring to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) demonstration in 2014, the PPP leader further commented: "We won't be staging sit-ins like the ones they used to stage that they would go home in the evening.

"We will lay down on the roads and will only return when they're forced out of the government. Don't let your patience falter, will very soon start a campaign to oust them."