ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Zardari has warned that the locus of power is fast shifting away from people to unelected elements, asking the nation to foil designs of religious fanatics and extremists to destroy the country’s democratic structure.

“Let us on this day pledge to stand together in foiling the designs of the religious fanatics and extremists who are out to destroy the democratic structure of the state,” Mr Zardari said in his message issued by the party’s media office on Monday on the eve of the 38th death anniversary of the party’s founding chairman and Pakistan’s first directly-elected prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Mr Zardari said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a visionary leader who made the people of Pakistan the locus of all political power “but the thought that bites the soul on his martyrdom anniversary is that the locus of power is fast shifting away from the people towards unelected elements”.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2017