<\/p>\n
Former President Asif Ali Zardari said on Thursday that his son and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was \u201cnot fully trained\u201d in politics and would \u201ctake time\u201d getting up to speed.<\/p>\n
The PPP leader made the remarks in an interview on Geo News<\/em> programme \u2018Capital Talk\u2019 with journalist Hamid Mir. During the interview, Zardari was asked about Bilawal, who in recent days has repeatedly<\/a> called on the nation to let older politicians \u201cstay at home\u201d and to give someone new a chance in the general elections.<\/p>\n Speaking in the National Assembly in August, Bilawal \u2014 the youngest foreign minister in the country\u2019s history \u2014 had also implored<\/a> his father and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif to take decisions that would make politics easier for the younger generation, which he said was losing hope in the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n During the interview, Zardari talked about his motivations for being involved in politics. \u201cPolitics is my compulsion, not a necessity. Because Bibi sahiba<\/em> was martyred, Bhutto sahib<\/em> was martyred and thousands of our workers were martyred. So there is a debt on us and I am in politics for that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then Bilawal is also not fully trained. [We] are training him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBilawal is not trained?\u201d asked an astonished Mir, to which Zardari shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll take time,\u201d the PPP leader said. At the same time, Zardari said Bilawal was more talented, educated and better spoken than him but \u201cexperience is experience\u201d.<\/p>\n Later in the interview, Zardari was asked about Bilawal\u2019s views on older politicians. \u201cThe younger generation these days has their own thinking [\u2026] everyone has a right to express their thoughts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He further said that stopping someone would only create more problems. \u201cWhat if he says \u2018you do politics, I will not\u2019. Then what will I do?\u201d<\/p>\n Zardari said Bilawal\u2019s remarks were directed at everyone. \u201cHe is saying it to everyone and not just Zardari sahib<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that politics took time and even he sometimes made mistakes. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I don\u2019t make [mistakes]. The journey of life is to learn from cradle to grave.\u201d<\/p>\n Zardari said within the PPP there were \u201ctwo parties\u201d. \u201cOne is PPP and one is PPPP. I have PPPP and I am its president. Bilawal is the chairman of PPP,\u201d he said, adding that he handed out tickets to party candidates.<\/p>\n Asked whether he was playing \u201cgood cop, bad cop\u201d, Zardari said: \u201cThis is not a police station that good cop, bad cop is played to get a confession out of someone. If Bilawal was in business with me, he would\u2019ve said the same thing. In politics too. This is every household\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n At the outset of the interview, Zardari said that he was certain elections would take place in the country on February 8. \u201cThat is why we are out and about, we have to cover all of Pakistan, go everywhere,\u201d he said, adding that political campaigns were \u201chealthy\u201d for political parties.<\/p>\n Commenting on the Pakistan Democratic Movement\u2019s (PDM) move to oust former premier Imran Khan in April 2022, Zardari said that Pakistan would have suffered had Imran stayed.<\/p>\n He said that Pakistan had been \u201cisolated\u201d from the world due to Imran. He further said that he did not understand what the PTI chief was thinking when he was in power. The PPP leader termed Imran an \u201cenemy\u201d of the economy and held the PTI government responsible for Pakistan\u2019s economic woes.<\/p>\n Mir then talked about reports that Zardari was asked to leave the country in 2021 on one hand and asked to form an alliance with the PTI on the other.<\/p>\n To this, Zardari said, \u201cThere are games. Games within games within games. Always. Take six ministries \u2014 why should I take six ministries?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGen Faiz said this?\u201d asked Mir, referring to ex-spymaster retired Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it necessary for a 164 on Gen Faiz?\u201d Zardari quipped while smiling, in an apparent reference to statements recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.<\/p>\n Zardari said he was being asked to form an alliance between the PPP and PTI \u201cacross the board\u201d, not just against the PML-N. He further said that he did not accept this alliance \u201cfrom the start\u201d.<\/p>\n Mir then asked the ex-president why he took the responsibility of roping in political parties for the no-confidence move against Imran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cause was mine. The cause was ours [\u2026] all parties had a consensus on ousting Imran so someone has to do the work,\u201d Zardari said. He said that the country\u2019s situation would have been worse if the no-confidence move against Imran had not succeeded.<\/p>\n Asked about the PPP\u2019s experience working with the coalition government, Zardari said that it was \u201cvery difficult\u201d. \u201cI said several things to Shehbaz sahib<\/em> but he did not listen and it harmed the country,\u201d he said, adding that these matters were related to trade.<\/p>\n At the same time, the PPP leader said he was \u201cimpressed\u201d with Shehbaz, noting that he was a \u201cworkaholic\u201d who would wake up early morning.<\/p>\n Asked about the possibility of working with the PML-N again, Zardari said, \u201cLook, what is the chessboard? On the chessboard, neither the PML-N, the PPP, Maulana sahib<\/em> nor any other party can take 172 [seats].\u201d<\/p>\n Zardari said that the next government would be \u201ccollective\u201d and a \u201cnational unity government\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former President Asif Ali Zardari said on Thursday that his son and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was \u201cnot fully trained\u201d in politics and would \u201ctake time\u201d getting up to speed. The PPP leader made the remarks in an interview on Geo News programme \u2018Capital Talk\u2019 with journalist Hamid Mir. During the interview, Zardari was asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/23200046fd6dfd3.png?r=203017","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018PPP was offered ministries to form alliance with PTI\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Difficult\u2019 experience with coalition govt<\/h2>\n