While addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, President Asif Ali Zardari, before beginning his speech, once again kept the photo frame on the podium bearing photograph of his late wife, and Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. General elections in Pakistan are just around the corner. Using an international forum and displaying the photograph of one’s political leader amounts to influencing the upcoming general elections and its results.
Nobody is denying the sacrifice that Benazir Bhutto gave for democracy in Pakistan, but the President is trying to cash in on the death of his wife and Pakistan’s twice elected prime minister. It seems like a strike below the belt for the ruling party to use this international platform to forward its own personal cause rather than a general one.
M RAFIQUE ZAKARIA,
Karachi, September 29.