PPP ready to seek MQM support for Zardari’s presidential bid

KARACHI/SEHWAN: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Saturday filed nomination papers of its candidate Asif Ali Zardari for the March 9 presidential election and announced that it would approach all parliamentary groups including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan to get their support for the PPP-Parliamentarian president.

Mr Zardari, who had earlier served as the president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, is set to run for his second term as the joint candidate of PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz for the country’s top constitutional office.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and former local government minister Nasir Shah are the proposer and seconder of Mr Zardari, respectively.

The CM along with PPP’s women wing president Faryal Talpur, former chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Speaker Sindh Assembly Awais Qadir Shah, Deputy Speaker Anthony Naveed, Nasir Shah and around two dozen MPAs reached the Sindh High Court and submitted Mr Zardari’s nomination papers before SHC Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi.

CJ Abbasi will hold the presidential election in the Sindh Assembly on March 9 as the presiding officer.

Nomination papers of PPPP president also filed from Sindh; CM Murad hopes Zardari will win March 9 poll as PPP-PMLN candidate

Later, talking to the media, the CM hoped that Mr Zardari would win the presidential poll with highest votes.

When asked whether the party would seek votes from the MQM-P, the CM replied that the PPP had “a good working relationship with the MQM-P and they had been our coalition partners”.

“We would seek their voter for Asif Ali Zardari,” he said and added his party would visit all the political forces in the parliament to seek their vote.

About the MQM-P’s recent agreement with the PML-N on empowered local government system, he claimed that the local government system in Sindh was “more effective, powerful and efficient than other provinces”.

The MQM-P had taken up the issue of strengthening local governments in Punjab, where this level/tier of government had not been properly established, he added.

CM stated that the MQM-P wanted to replicate better works of the Sindh government in the Punjab local governments for which it had made an agreement with the PML-N.

Mr Shah also stated that he would form his cabinet soon in consultation with his party leadership.

Later in the evening, he told reporters in Sehwan that the PPP would not only approach the MQM-P but wanted to see it voting for Mr Zardari, who is the joint candidate of the PPP and PML-N for presidency.

He said he had even requested the Sunni Ittehad Council and the lone Jamaat-i-Islami lawmaker in the Sindh Assembly to vote for PPP-backed speaker and deputy speaker.

He said president symbolised federation’s stability and he would like to see Mr Zardari being elected with maximum number of votes.

The CM said being the president Mr Zardari had transferred his powers to parliament. He recalled that in 2008 he had brought about reconciliation among all political parties and formed a coalition government with the MQM in Sindh.

He said that the PPP wanted stability in the country and that’s why it was working with PML-N. He said that the PPP had made it clear that no government could be formed without its support.