‘I’ll make Pakistan a great country’: Zardari

[Naveed Yaseen]

‘I’ll make Pakistan a great country’: Zardari
Naveed adds: ....after that I will go back to Dubai or New York

* Zardari says Barack Obama will chair next Friends of Pakistan meeting

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday vowed to make Pakistan a great country and said he will do what others before him failed to achieve.

“We have started from where Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir left [off],” the president said while speaking at a dinner he hosted for PPP parliamentarians from the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies.

The reception was arranged to introduce second generation party workers to up and coming party workers.

“We have come a long way, and in the process, [have] fought three dictators. But whatever the situation, we were never intimidated by them,” he added.

“I would like to go down in the annals of history rather than [dying] at the hands of a dictator.”

The President said his party has always worked for the people and the downtrodden and this was the spirit with his late spouse worked with throughout her life.

“[Benazir Bhutto] was told time and again not to go out in public. She was told to address rallies from her home. But she said no one could keep her away from her people.”

President Zardari said that she knew she would not live for very long and wrote her 17-page will. “And her pen never shook once,” Zardari said.

President Zardari announced that the next meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) will be chaired by US President Barack Obama himself.

He said that by the time People’s Party government completed its tenure, they would add another 7,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.

He also stressed the need to control population growth because current resources were not adequate to meet the demands of a growing number of people.

The President said that he was ready to face any challenges and told the audience “ [We do] politics on the basis of our ideals and principles.”

“We will make sure that in the future, no one will be able to mould the constitution according to his will. The system will be run according to the constitution,” the president said .

Speaking at the occasion, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said the party workers had made limitless sacrifices for the party, and its flag would always fly high.

He said the Bhutto’s were the only family in Pakistani politics that have never compromised on their principles.

Earlier, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the party will continue to fight for human rights and the rights of women and the supremacy of the constitution. app

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_23