PESHAWAR, Sept 8: The Pakistan People’s Party has claimed that the joint PPP-ANP electoral alliance will give a crushing defeat to the nominees of King’s splinter group in the NWFP and win all the national and provincial assembly seats.

In a statement on Saturday evening, PPP provincial president Khwaja Mohammad Khan Hoti said the electoral alliance would work for the restoration of democracy in and outside the elected forums. It was an alliance of liberal and secular forces which were struggling together to get the country rid of retrogressive and negative forces, he added.

Hoti said despite all political constraints, the PPP would win the October general elections all over the country and form the next government. Only the PPP could save the country and steer it out of the deteriorating situation created by the non-political entities, he stressed.

He urged the party workers to work hard for the success of the joint PPP-ANP candidates in Peshawar, Mardan and Swat as it had become imperative for them to bring an electoral victory to the joint nominees.

The PPP provincial chief dispelled the impression that PPP workers dissatisfied with the party’s electoral alliance with the ANP would contest the elections against the joint candidates.

They would eventually abide by the party discipline and support the joint candidates, he added.

The foreign observers’ teams which were touring different cities, he said were keenly observing government’s shenanigans. “The world community wants Pakistan rulers to hold free, fair and transparent elections,” he added.

The PPP, Hoti said, would continue with its protest against the expulsion of party chairperson Benazir Bhutto from the elections. The government was afraid of genuine political forces and it was promoting and backing non-political groups, he remarked.

He said if the PPP came to power, it would make all those people accountable who were involved in depriving the country of real democracy and the rule of law. “His party does not accept law of the rulers, but the rule of law,” he added.

ZARDARI: In a separate statement, a spokes-man for the PPP called upon the National Democratic Institute’s visiting team to take notice of the incarceration of Asif Ali Zardari, spouse of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and false cases against him.

He recalled that Zardari had been languishing in jails for the last six years and the government had failed to prove anything against him since 1995. “All cases against Mr Zardari had been instituted with bad intentions and on political grounds. He is a victim of political vendetta.”

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