Asif Ali Zardari opposes calls for early election

Karachi (HRNW) Former president and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari has opposed the calls to hold early election in the country to overcome political uncertainty that has marred the stock market and hindered economic revival.

“Last night I spoke to Mian Sahib and convinced him,” Zardari told a press conference Wednesday at Sindh’s Chief Minister House.

He said that Imran Khan was demanding early election and PPP was not afraid to elections, but it wanted electoral reforms before holding the polls.

In our game plan, elections would come after electoral reforms, he added.

Talking about the electoral reforms bill passed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, he said the law is the entire point of contention.

He said the current coalition government has plans to change the law as it has left the room through which a selected government could be brought in the future.

“We have to change the law and improve it, whether it take sthree month or four month, it is not n issue.”

Talking about the PTI’s criticism on the government’s plan to roll back the Overseas Pakistani’s voting rights, he said the current 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.

We have to do electoral reforms, NAB reforms [and other reforms to fix] economy [which is] at a brink that people don’t even want to give you money,” said Zardari.

He said whoever would take the power had to deal with these challenges, so it is only better that the current government deal with them.

Zardari said unless the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program gets back on the track, the country would face economic difficulty.

He said the government was reluctant to increase the petrol prices as it would lead to more inflation.

He called for “out of the box solutions” to fix the economy.

He said the government should look to privatize some institutions to relieve burden off the exchequer.

“State Life Insurance is worth more than 100b. [If the government] gives 26% of its shares to any private company, it could raise Rs8b to Rs10b,” added Zardari.

He said these are the tough decisions which would be made after consensus with all the allied parties.