Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday said that he will not accept “any kind of rigging” in the upcoming no-trust vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan in the National Assembly.
“He [PM Imran] knows he can only win through rigging. This is his last resort,” Bilawal said while addressing PPP supporters at a rally in Malakand on Wednesday. “But no selection will take place now. No one is ready to shake hands with you. People have to let this man go.”
Bilawal said that the no-confidence motion is a test for the democracy, neutrality, and federation of Pakistan. “We want to face this test democratically. We believe it is very important for the progress of Pakistan,” he pointed out, demanding that his party wants the constitutional process of the no-trust vote to be completed soon.
The PPP leader stressed that it was important to oust the prime minister, saying: “We will face him democratically and we will treat the umpire’s finger with our thumb, vote, and democracy.”
PM Imran Khan would be expelled through a democratic course, Bilawal vowed. “I won’t use any undemocratic weapons, nor will I attack any institution. I won’t knock on the fourth gate.”
It is, in fact, the PM who is violating the Constitution by trapping the speaker [Asad Qaiser] in Article 6, the PPP chairman said as he challenged the premier to cut to the chase and hold the no-confidence motion immediately.
“He must demonstrate his strength through a power show of 173-lawmakers in the National Assembly,” Bilawal said. “He calls us rats and is himself running away. You are a rat, Imran Khan.”
The PPP leader remarked that while Urdu indeed is Pakistan’s national language, “Pashtuns, Seraikis, and Sindhis are equally Pakistanis too, just like those who speak Urdu.”
“Before teaching me [Urdu], go teach your children,” he hit back at the premier, who had recently mocked Bilawal Urdu proficiency.
Bilawal accused the prime minister of using the language of a “defeated man”, saying that it doesn’t sound good coming from the prime minister of a country. “You call Maulana Fazlur Rehman diesel but you have forgotten the price of diesel which has skyrocketed. You called Shehbaz boot polisher but you are not left with any more boots. You talk about Madinah from the same mouth you hurl abuses from.”
The PPP chairman called out the premier for “sabotaging” the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). “He has been named in so many scandals but refuses to speak on them.”
Bilawal promised that the next elections to be held in the country will be “fair and transparent”.
“Imran Khan wants the law of the jungle to be implemented,” he alleged. “Imran wants to convert all the institutions into his Tiger Force. He wants the media, the NAB, [and] the judiciary to be like his Tiger Force. But our Constitution is clear that no such institution can function out of its domain.”
H urged his party’s supporters to hold the prime minister accountable through their vote, assuring that the upcoming general elections will be a “democratic revenge”.
“When I will visit you next, there will be a new prime minister,” he added.
