KARACHI, June 20: Reiterating that change was imminent in the President’s House, Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said that the time was near when pro-Bhutto slogans would ring out from the presidency.

He was addressing a PPP rally via telephone at Nazimabad’s Annu Bhai Park late on Friday night, held to observe Benazir Bhutto’s birthday, which falls on June 21. Ms Bhutto would have been 55 on Saturday.

Many of the party’s Karachi-based leaders could barely conceal their glee at holding a rally in the former district central, which is considered by some to be a stronghold of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the PPP’s coalition partner in the Sindh government.

“We will soon have rallies like this in Islamabad, in the President’s House. The President’s House will echo with Bhutto slogans. The time is near when Jeay Bhutto will be heard all over Pakistan,” Mr Zardari told the crowd.

While the PPP co-chairman was speaking, shots were fired outside the venue. When he finished his speech, the firing intensified and the organizers were quick to come on to the public address system and disassociate the party with the gunmen. “These people are not party workers. We urge the TPO to take action,” an organizer said, as gunmen could be seen firing into the air around the exit of the park.

“Your arrival here shows people that BB is alive,” Zardari said, using Ms Bhutto’s popular nickname. “Yazidiat is dead but Husainiyat lives, Bhuttoism lives. We will create a new Pakistan as BB envisioned.”

He added that no industry would be privatised without the consent of workers and that he was only holding the party’s leadership as a trust until his son Bilawal came of age.