Pakistan Views

Country faces violence if political leaders fail to heed the people’s demand for change, Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday.
Zardari, who is leading Pakistan People’s Party into a Feb. 18 general election, said the people were demanding genuine democracy and giving the establishment one last chance to deliver it.
“The future of the people of Pakistan is at stake. We are not listening to the people. We, altogether, have to listen to the people and the people are looking for a change,” Zardari told a news conference in Lahore.
“The writing is on the wall. Either we stay together or the casualty rate is going to be exactly what it is, and has been, in other countries where great difficulties have come,” he said on his first visit to Lahore.
Riding a wave of sympathy, Bhutto’s PPP could become the largest party in the National Assembly after the vote.
Lahore is Pakistan’s political nerve centre and capital of Punjab, the country’s biggest province which has about half of the seats in parliament.
The PPP and the other main opposition party, led by Nawaz Sharif, say Musharraf’s allies are going all out to rig the election with government connivance.
They say they will launch street protests if they are robbed of victory. Zardari said his party would go to “any extent” to protest a rigged result. He did not elaborate.
Zardari said the establishment had to restore democracy to save the country.
“I appeal to the establishment, this is the last chance Pakistanis are giving you,” he said, referring to the military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half its 61 years of history, and the civilian bureaucracy.
“It is my message that they must restore democracy if they want to save this country. They all have to go,” he said.
“Either they will stay, or Pakistan will survive,” he said.