By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Asif Ali Zardari, the former president and co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, will be the party’s candidate for the next presidential election, his son and party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari announced on Sunday.
The announcement came amid stalled negotiations between the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the two largest parties in the parliament, over forming a coalition government after the Feb. 8 general elections.
Both parties claimed to have made “significant progress” in the talks, but failed to reach a consensus on the power-sharing formula and the distribution of key constitutional offices, including the presidency and the speaker of the National Assembly.
The PPP has offered its support to the PML-N in forming the government and electing the prime minister, on the condition that it gets the presidency and other important posts. The PML-N., however, has been reluctant to concede the presidency to the PPP.
The PPP has also said that it will not join the federal cabinet, despite supporting the PML-N at the center.
Bhutto-Zardari said that his party had decided to move forward with those who had come to them and asked for their votes, without naming the PML-N.
“We will not take any ministries from them. We will not [seek] our benefit but the people’s benefit […] we will ensure that democracy is saved,” the scion of the Bhutton family said at a rally in Thatta, a city in Sindh. “If we have to give someone our vote for prime minister, then we will ensure that we get the flood affectees in Sindh and Balochistan their due rights.”
The 35-year-old, a former foreign minister said that his party had chosen Zardari, who served as president from 2008 to 2013, as its presidential candidate to “put out the fire spreading in the country”.
“And when he takes up the post, he will put out this fire, will save the Center and will take care of the four provinces.”
Bhutto-Zardari, the grandson of the former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, said that he did not have the right to run for the prime minister’s slot after the election results, which gave his party 54 seats out of 342 in the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament.
He had rejected a proposal from the PML-N to share the prime minister’s term, with the PML-N taking the first three years and him taking the remaining two.
“I said no to this. I do not want to become a prime minister like this. If I become the prime minister, it would be after the people of Pakistan elect me.”
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