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A policeman stands guard on a rooftop as supporters of main opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz rally against the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in Lahore yesterday. |
The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) called the rally in order to exploit calls for early elections in its political heartland where it controls the Punjab provincial government despite being in opposition at a national level.
Party faithful denounced corruption and widespread power cuts, calling on the 56-year-old president, dubbed “Mr Ten Percent” over graft allegations, to step down before the government’s five-year mandate expires in 2013.
Smaller rallies converged into a sea of people, packed left and right for up to 2km (one mile) massed on one of the entrances to the old city of Lahore, near the shrine of Sufi saint Data Ganj Bakhsh, said witnesses.
“Go Zardari, go corruption, go load shedding,” they chanted, in reference to the crippling power cuts that blight homes and businesses in much of Pakistan.
Lahore, with a population of 8mn, is Pakistan’s second-biggest city and the capital of the most populous province Punjab, which commands the greatest number of seats in the national parliament.
That makes it bitterly contested territory where opposition leaders are targeting the unpopular Zardari and trying to whip up future votes.
They are looking to exploit disillusionment with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that swept to power in February 2008, two months after Zardari’s wife, ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated.
“The whole city has converged here. Shame on the people who said PML-N has been isolated,” shouted MP Saad Rafiq from the top of a moving truck.
An effigy of the president was beaten and seat ablaze, again to chants of “Go Zardari, go”.
Opposition followers danced as songs praising leader Nawaz Sharif blasted out at top volume. Others carried toy lions—the animal is Sharif’s election symbol—shouting “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif”.
One police official told AFP on condition of anonymity that more than 30,000 people were in the crowd.
PML-N spokesman Siddiqul Farooq declined to put a figure on the turnout saying: “There is a sea of people. We just cannot count.”
Amid tight security, a large stage was set up with bulletproof glass next to hoardings of Nawaz and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab.
Nawaz is not expected to address the rally, but was scheduled to return from a private visit to Turkey later yesterday.
Police commandos were seen on the rooftops of buildings and Lahore police chief Malik Ahmed Raza Tahir told AFP that his officers were on high alert to prevent any possible attack by Islamist militants.
Members of Zardari’s party have lashed out at the Sharifs, accusing them of misappropriating Punjab’s resources.
“They are using government resources and functionaries for their political show,” Raja Riaz, who served as senior minister under Sharif when the PPP was briefly in the provincial ruling coalition, told AFP.
An irritant for Sharif and Zardari is cricket-hero-turned-politician, Imran Khan, holding his own rally tomorrow at the Minar-e-Pakistan ground where the resolution for the creation of Pakistan was adopted on March 23, 1940.
Campaigning by his Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party, which boycotted the 2008 election, has sparked debate about the extent to which he will deprive the Sharifs of political support. AFP