ISLAMABAD, March 9: The People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) has termed the defection of MNA Zafar Iqbal Warraich the worst kind of horse-trading and condemned the government for pressurising opposition members so as to get their support.

PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto, in a statement here on Tuesday, said the defection symbolized the "brutal face of dictatorship in Pakistan. She said political parties were facing opposition from the state apparatus in their functioning. "The state apparatus is making and breaking political parties from the time when MPAs were taken away to Changa Manga in 1988," she added.

Ms Bhutto said the real power vested in a serving general "styling himself the president of Pakistan after having lost the vote of confidence." She said the politics of the establishment had focused on making and breaking political parties that had damaged national solidarity and integrity. "Horse-trading had given birth to corruption, nepotism, loot and plunder."

The PPP chairperson said when Abdullah Murad Baloch was gunned down in Karachi, the officials of the regime abused their office in pressuring various individuals not to file an FIR against the culprits.

Ms Bhutto said while the party was unable to prevent the establishment from forcing defections of those that lack courage, the PPP viewed the defections as a welcome purge of cowardly individuals, who failed to stand with the party whose ticket they sought and to whom they were morally obligated to stand.

She called upon the youths to come forward and take the place of those tired, wornout individuals lacking the courage, determination and integrity to stand by their party at a time when the country was in turmoil and "the ugly face of military dictatorship had raised its face."

Ms Bhutto said forces of tyranny could never succeed. "The victory belongs to the people and that victory will surely come. This dictatorship too will fall into the dustbin of history as did the earlier military dictatorships of Ayub, Yayha and Zia," she said.

The PPP chairperson said first the establishment forced defections through blatant bribery and offering cabinet seats to prevent the PPP from forming the government. Now, the establishment was forcing more defections because it did not want the PPP to become the opposition and alternative government.

Ms Bhutto said all these tactics of the "dictatorial forces that had foisted the Taliban, when they harboured Al Qaeda, launched the ill-fated Kargil war, presided over the export of nuclear technology, brought economic bankruptcy and given birth to sectarianism, extremism and suicide bombers would ultimately fail because freedom was the birthright of every Pakistani."

She called upon the party organization to immediately fill up the gaps caused by defections with fresh blood to revitalize and strengthen the party to force the democratisation of Pakistan.