KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday said the 12th death anniversary of former premier Benazir Bhutto would be observed at Liaquat Bagh (Rawalpindi) where she had been assassinated on December 27 and that day would be the “beginning of a new battle with the single goal to send the present puppet government packing”.

Addressing the party’s general workers’ convention at Bilawal House, the PPP leader said, “Dec 27 will be the day when we will launch a new battle with our key goal to dislodge this incompetent and puppet government and re-establish the people’s rule [in] the country.”

He said the party had decided to hold its main congregation at Liaquat Bagh where the former premier was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack on Dec 27 twelve years ago.

“At present, when attacks on democratic dispensation and on the rights of the people are being made from all directions, it is our party’s responsibility to play its role and render sacrifices as we have been doing in the past decades.

“We are ready to fight for the peoples’ rule until our last breath,” said the PPP chief.

“This is our message for the federation that despite our leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [being] martyred on April 4 and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto [being] martyred on Dec 27, our party’s third generation has still not been deterred. PPP’s third generation is coming back to Pindi.”

He said people did not accept the “selected and puppet government” and believed in the fact that they were the only force that would establish their rule in Pakistan.

“It is the will of the people that will prevail, and not of the umpires, here in our country.”

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led federal government had made the people’s life extremely hard by bowing before the International Monetary Fund’s conditions and, thus, “destroying, otherwise, a vibrant economy” in over a year during their rule.

He said after the public meeting at Liaquat Bagh on Dec 27, his party would launch a mass-contact campaign in which “we will present our peoples’ agenda”.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2019