January 07, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 09, 1430

KARACHI, Jan 6: Former chief minister of Punjab Ghulam Mustafa Khar has said that the Pakistan People’s Party-led government has failed to deliver and if the party insists on following disastrous policies, it may become politically limited to Sindh only.

Mr Khar, who was once declared by PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as his parliamentary successor, made these observations at a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Tuesday.

“The ongoing crises of electricity, inflation and law and order are getting deeper with the passage of time, and if President Asif Ali Zardari continues to pursue present policies, the PPP would soon shrink to Sindh only,” he warned.

He said Mr Bhutto was given power after the country had been dismembered and Pakistanis faced an uncertain future, but within three to four months the country came out of the crisis, because the workers were taken into confidence.

He also criticised the opposition which he said was playing the role of a spectator and was doing nothing to take the country out of the crisis it was in. The PPP didn’t vanish even after Mr Bhutto was sent to the gallows because the party had empowered its workers, he said. But now after coming to power neither Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani nor President Asif Zardari had met any worker of the party, he added.

Political party-led governments run only when its political workers were mobilised and taken into confidence, he said.

He said that the PPP had failed to win a few by-elections held recently, adding that this trend indicated that the party was losing its popularity.

Further criticising the government, he spoke about the recent arrest of Sindh National Front leader Mumtaz Ali Bhutto.

He said the ‘arrest episode’ took place amid a blaze of publicity that far exceeded the media attention Mr Bhutto received over the past 10 years.

He accused President Zardari of violating the accord signed between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and warned that if the present situation persisted, there would be no democracy in the country.

Mr Zardari had ditched old guards of the PPP who were rejected as men of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, he said.

When asked about the possibility of his launching a movement against the government, Mr Khar said that internal and external situation did not allow launching of any such movement.