LEADERS of the two former ruling parties — the PPP and PML-N — have so far not been able to swallow their defeat in the July 2018 general elections.

PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is using derogatory language, calling an elected prime minister ‘a puppet’. This is hardly expected of the head of a political party, to say the least.

The leaders of both the former ruling parties while bluntly refusing the verdict of the electorate in favour of the PTI time and again allege that the incumbent prime minister has been brought to power by the establishment and not by the electorate.

Veteran political leader and PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain recently in a statement said that the incumbent prime minister had been elected by the electorate and everyone should accept this reality, howsoever bitter it may be.

For setting the record straight, PPP and PML-N leaders must remembers that PPP founder and former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, grandfather of Bilawal Zardari, was ushered into the corridors of powers by the country’s first military ruler Field Marshal Ayub Khan. PML-N founder president Nawaz Sharif, who has now been disqualified and convicted for corruption, was brought into the political limelight by Punjab governor and former ISI chief Gen Ghulam Jilani who had introduced him to Gen Ziaul Haq, while Muslim leaguer Shaujaat Hussain was brought into politics as president of the PML-Q by none else than Gen Pervez Musharraf.

These facts are part of our country’s chequered political history and should be accepted by all.

M. A. H. Sheikh

Lahore

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2018