LARKANA: Sindh United Party (SUP) President Syed Zain Shah has said that free and fair elections in the country are vital to put the country on the right path. He also stressed a strict across the board accountability of the corrupt.

“Punishment for guilty of corruption should be death penalty as is in practice in China,” he said while addressing party workers and journalists in Waleed town of Larkana district on Friday night.

Mr Shah’s visit is part of SUP’s mass contract campaign, launched to mobilise people for the Nov 14 rally at the Hyderabad Bypass planned by the opposition Tehreek Tahaffuz-i-Aaeen Pakistan.

He regretted that accountability process against major parties was stopped “on political grounds”.

Mr Shah described PPP’s campaign against deportation of illegal Afghan immigrants as “nothing but a deceptive show”, arguing that the federal government itself was not serious in deporting them.

Public mobilisation campaign launched for Nov 14 rally of Tehreek Tahaffuz-i-Aeen Pakistan

“Through fraudulent elections, hand-picked individuals have been brought to power and the accountability process was wrapped up. These individuals have handed over natio­nal assets to plunderers,” he alleged, and observed that the PPP, PML-N, MQM-P, and their allies have formed an ‘artificial hybrid government’.

He claimed that the country’s borders were insecure while armed conflicts and terrorism persisted within the country.

Zain Shah believed that Pakistan was being unnecessarily dragged into the Middle East conflict, which would get the country no benefits.

According to him, the assemblies are ineffective because no entity — government, parliament or institutions — is accountable for weak foreign policy and flawed natural resource management. The reason is the ‘fake system’, hence, a transparent system must be introduced through biometric and electronic voting machines (EVMs).

The SUP chief noted that Sindh’s education and health sectors were collapsing and needed to be reformed.

He said that free and fair elections and strict accountability were essential to rid the country of most ills. “China’s development lies in its accountability system where the corrupt is sentenced to death,” he said, adding that Pakistan should also go for it in order to root out corruption.

He told the audience that the Tehreek Tahaffuz-i-Aaeen Pakistan has formed an opposition alliance comprising Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Sindh United Party, Balochistan National Party, Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen, Sunni Ittehad Council and others, with more parties expected to join it.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2025