LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party leader Qamar Zaman Kaira says the party has the capability to topple the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government but won’t do so and let it complete the term so that its ineptness stands exposed before the masses.

“We have the ability and required number to oust the PTI government but are observing restraint only to fully expose its incompetence before the masses by letting it complete its constitutional term,” he said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Mr Kaira said the PPP could have checked formation of the National Assembly after the “tainted” polls had its leadership wished so, but for the sake of democracy it accepted the “manipulated” election results.

Criticises delay in removing the names of the chief minister and others from ECL

He said that soon after the release of a joint investigation team’s report on fake bank accounts, the PTI ministers rushed to topple the Sindh government, adding that the chaos created by the ministers during the last two weeks was aimed at “covering their own incompetence”.

He wondered whether the JIT had been formed to probe the fake bank accounts or lay a trap around the PPP leadership. “We do know that their aim was to encircle Asif Ali Zardari through the JIT. But we are not afraid of it.”

The former information minister asked what message the PTI government desired to give by placing the name of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on the Exit Control List as the step created a [political] crisis. He regretted that despite a clear-cut directive by the Supreme Court, the government was using delaying tactics to remove the names of the chief minister and others from the ECL by forming a review committee.

He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government was talking of closing the Asghar Khan case while in the opposition he was hyperactive for a court verdict on the issue.

Mr Kaira said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would visit the Punjab capital for one day on Jan 5. He would cut a cake to mark the birth anniversary of the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at the Lahore High Court and return to Karachi in the evening.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2019