KARACHI, May 28: The Central Information Secretary of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Sherry Rehman, has strongly condemned the allegations made by a government minister Sher Afghan Niazi that the PPP chairperson was in direct contact with General Musharraf these days.
She said that it was clear that the military regime had tasked Sher Afghan and a few other officials to spread this lie about Ms Bhutto in a futile attempt to create a rift in the newly formalized understanding between the two elected, popular leaders and their parties through the recently signed Charter of Democracy.
Daily attempts by the regime to spread this disinformation is a clear reflection of its own panic at the growing accord between the PPP and the PML-N on principles that would govern a new social and democratic order in Pakistan, she said in a statement mailed to the press from the Media Cell at Bilawal House on Sunday.
Since the regime and its henchmen are unable to find any flaws in the charter, which heralds an era of mutual tolerance for all democratic forces and supremacy of independent judiciary, the election commission and an elected, accountable parliament, they are trying to divert public attention from the charter's substance by deliberately creating confusion based on blatant falsehoods, she said. Ms Rehman said the PPP and its leadership had paid in blood and sweat for its commitment to democratic principles, starting with the life of its own founding chairman, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
While Benazir Bhutto and her own family including Senator Asif Ali Zardari have spent long years in prison and exile without cutting any deals, she added.
“Why would they compromise on their principles now, and why would Benazir Bhutto be talking to a discredited regime today when every week its witch hunt against her is escalating against both at home and abroad?” she asked.
Sher Afghan Niazi can hardly be believed in anything he says given that he openly betrayed the PPP and its chairperson by getting elected on the party ticket and then joining hands with a regime desperate for proxies and defectors, she said.
She asked what credence Afghan’s questions held against the Charter of Democracy when his own credibility had been fatally compromised in the eyes of the whole country at his daily defence of a system he shouted most loudly against even two days before he traded his conscience for a ministry.
The military regime should realize that Pakistan could not be made hostage to one man's whims any longer, and a new system would have to be allowed to take root with the help of free and fair elections held under the a neutral caretaker government of national consensus.