ISLAMABAD   -    Former president Asif Ali Zardari has said that arrest of PPP candidate in South Waziristan is tantamount to rigging in elections.

Talking to journalists at the Parliament House where he was brought by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to attend the National Assembly’s budget session here yesterday, Asif Zardari said Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should ensure release of Imran Wazir to save its credibility.

The PPP leader said arrest of candidate during election campaign was condemnable and put a question mark on the credibility of polls. He, however, of the view that these arrests could not lower courage of PPP workers.

Zardari said, “Maryam Nawaz is like our daughter but our view point is that final decision will be made by APC instead of a single party.”

Answering a question, he said how one could imagine that reconciliation process had started. Responding to another question Zardari said PPP stood with decisions of APC instead of Nawaz or Shehbaz.

The former president said it was the joint opposition that will make a decision about charter of economy with the government.

When asked to comment on PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz’s statement terming the charter a mockery of economy, he said: “Maryam Bibi is our daughter. Our ideology is that it is for the joint opposition to take any decision. There won’t be any single party’s decision.”

To a question of whether he sided with the narrative of Nawaz Sharif or Shehbaz Sharif, he said he would abide by the united opposition’s narrative.

Addressing a press conference a day earlier, Maryam had said she considered “Meesaq-e-Maeeshat” (charter of economy) as “Mazaq-e-Maeeshat.”

She maintained offering charter of economy to Imran Khan was like giving him an NRO as he, due to his incompetence, caused irreparable damage to the economy and now wanted opposition to become a part of his failure on economic front.