LAHORE: PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari continued his meetings with party cadres for the sixth day here on Wednesday to mobilise them for a public meeting his son Bilawal is going to address on Oct 18.

He also used the meetings to criticise the ruling PML-N — apparently in a bid to negate a perception that PPP was a “friendly opposition” — as well as the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

He separately met party leaders from rural areas of Lahore and the Gujranwala and Rawalpindi divisions.

Know more: Zardari refuses to take on PML-N

Alluding to the party workers’ ‘complaint’ of being too friendly with the government, leaving a vacuum for the PTI to fill by playing the role of the ‘real opposition’, Mr Zardari said all his efforts were aimed at protecting democracy and not Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

He said he had tactfully ousted former president Pervez Musharraf from power and let him go out of the country but Mr Sharif detained the ex-army ruler, implying that the step was one of the reasons behind the current political crisis.

Referring to the social work carried out by PTI chief Imran Khan, he said many families had built charitable hospitals bigger than Shaukat Khanum but none had claimed political mileage or personal exposure out of them.

“One cannot become a politician just by building a hospital,” he said, advising the PTI chairman “to have patience now that he has entered politics”.

Mr Zardari said: “My forefathers established the Sindh Madressah where the Quaid-i-Azam was educated. But I never claimed that the Quaid-i-Azam got educated because of my forefathers.”

He said Mr Sharif had learnt about the challenges after coming into power and the PTI leader would also learn a few things.

He urged the PPP workers to stay away from the Nawaz-Imran conflict, while only enjoying it.

Mr Zardari, who was the president during last year’s elections, supported the PTI’s allegations of rigging, saying: “I had told PPP candidates that it was not their defeat but victory of the returning officers.”

He admitted that acceptance of the PTI’s demand for taking ROs from the lower judiciary was a mistake.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2014