‘Old politicians ought to be sent home,’ Bilawal stresses need for new leadership

• Bilawal says new leadership and politics needed to come out of crises.
• Ex-FM says people’s problems won’t be solved amid “personal enmities”.
• “Pakistan won’t progress unless the vote is not given respect.”

As the country inches towards the general elections, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Thursday underscored the need for new leadership and new politics, saying that the “old politicians will have to be sent home”.

Addressing a workers’ convention in Abbottabad, Bilawal said that other parties are into old politics but there should be a “doctrine and manifesto” that the PPP possesses.

He said that new leadership and new politics are needed to come out of the crises, hitting out at the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N, which has presented its supremo, Nawaz Sharif, as a possible candidate for the prime ministership.

Nawaz is in Pakistan after ending a four-year self-imposed exile in October, but his participation in the elections remains in doubt due to legal issues — as he had been disqualified from holding public office. 

“Such a leadership which is not stuck in the past, which thinks about the future, doesn’t get caught up in politics and division,” Bilawal said.

He further stated that people’s problems won’t be resolved if the “personal enmities are to continue like this”. “Pakistan won’t progress unless the vote is not given respect”.

Without taking any names, the former foreign minister then called for electing someone as the prime minister who has never been given a chance, instead of making someone the premier for the second or fourth time.

“If you give a chance, I promise I will never disappoint you,” Bilawal added.

He pledged to double the salaries during the next five years if given a chance. “Only then the nation could be saved from the tsunami of inflation,” he added.

The PPP chairman said that there is no opponent of his party except for poverty, unemployment, and inflation.

“We have the plan for how to end inflation, give relief to the nation,” he said.