Bilawal warns of long march to save 18th Amendment

KHAIRPUR: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has warned against any attempt to roll back the 18th Amendment and said he is ready to launch a struggle, even a long march, to foil such attempts. He was talking to journalists after jointly inaugurating the Gambat Medical College with Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday. Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the Sindh government had upgraded health facilities like the National Institute of Cardio- Vascular Diseases and the National Institute of Child Health and, as a result, heart surgeries were being conducted free of cost in the province. Earlier, when these organisations were under the control of the federal government, they were run on donations. He said some forces wanted to abolish the 18th Amendment so that they could snatch control of different institutions from the provinces, but the PPP would not let them do it. He said that the party would also adopt a legal course to retain control of the hospitals. Asked about the perceived attempts to introduce a presidential system in the country, the PPP leader said he had warned during his election campaign that some people wanted to bring in a dummy government to abolish the 18th Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution so that a presidential system could be introduced in the country. “These people have not learnt a lesson from the past,” he said. He said that the only suitable system for Pakistan was the parliamentary system because the country comprised people speaking different languages and their representation could only be ensured in a parliamentary system.