ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has asked members of his PPP to keep an eye on privatisation policies of the PML-N government and raise voice against “crony capitalism” and “throwing workers out of jobs”.

“The party must not permit any policy that threw the labour and working classes out of jobs,” said Mr Zardari at a meeting with the party’s Pakhtunkhwa chapter office-bearers and leaders here on Saturday.

Mr Zardari’s spokesman Senator Farhatullah Khan Babar said the ex-president had asked the party men to highlight any lack of transparency during the privatisation process.

Mr Zardari said that despite “obvious manipulations” in the May elections, his party had accepted the results so that democracy continued to flourish and undemocratic forces did not get an opportunity to derail the system. He said politicians’ infighting had in the past provided an excuse to undemocratic forces to intervene and hijack political power. “This must not be allowed to happen,” he said.

He, however, said that not destabilising the system should not be taken to mean that the PPP should abandon its political and democratic role to keep a check on the government’s “excesses and misdoings” which must be challenged and brought into the open and rectified.

Mr Zardari held a similar meeting with the PPP members from Punjab on Friday.

According to Mr Babar, the meeting reviewed the organisational matters of the party, discussed strategy about the local government polls and outlined the PPP’s policies on the issues confronting the nation.