Just two days after its debut power show, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an alliance comprising 11 of the country’s opposition parties, held its second rally in Karachi.
The rally was held on Sunday evening at the Bagh-i-Jinnah, where leaders of the opposition parties appeared unfazed by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s warning that he would get “tougher” and start making all-out efforts to bring his predecessor Nawaz Sharif back to the country, reports Dawn news.
Sunday’s event also coincided with the 13th anniversary of the October 18, 2007 attack on the homecoming procession of late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi that killed more than 200 people.
Addressing the crowd of supporters, Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said Khan and his government would face the same fate as that of “past dictators”.
“Imran Khan should remember the past dictators. He should remember their life and fate. Your fate would not be different from them. You can never suppress people’s voice for long. The people’s anger would sweep away the government and its foundations,” he said to cheers from the audience.
“It’s time for the puppet Prime Minister to get panicked.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz counted the number of “blunders, corruption and incompetence” of the incumbent government.
She added that Khan had admitted that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was with him and referred to the list of PTI government’s “achievements” in two years.
Calling the Prime Minister a “coward”, she accused him of using the armed forces for his face-saving and declaring opponents as traitors only to save his skin and hide incompetence, Dawn news reported.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who has been appointed as the alliance’s first phase President, claimed to have received threats and offers when he, with leaders of other parties, was planning to bring all “democratic political forces under the PDM”.
“But we neither cared about the threats and offers. We made it clear to every segment that we don’t accept this puppet government. We would launch the movement at any cost,” he added.
The PDM is now scheduled to hold its third rally in Quetta on October 25, which will be followed by the fourth in Peshawar on November 22, fifth in Multan on November 30 and the last one in Lahore on December 13.
The alliance’s first power show took place on October 16 in the city of Gujranwala.
