President Zardari is a security risk: Farooq Leghari

* Former president calls cases against president, Benazir legitimate

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Calling President Asif Ali Zardari a security threat, former president Farooq Ahmed Leghari has said that he has been placed in the Presidency with a “particular agenda”, a private TV channel reported on Monday.

Speaking to the channel, Leghari, who parted ways with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) after dismissing Benazir Bhutto’s second government in 1996, claimed that Zardari intended to roll back the country’s nuclear program, among other things.

“He (Zardari) has not been able to achieve his target due to various constraints,” Farooq added.

He said Zardari’s future looks bleak, adding that Benazir and Zardari had been involved in corruption. Commenting on the corruption cases filed against them, he said he and other PPP leaders, Aitzaz Ahsan and Iftikhar Gilani, had asked Benazir to distance herself from Zardari during her first stint as the prime minister “but she expressed her inability to do so”.

Cases: When asked that no case had been proved against them in court, Leghari said all the cases were legitimate and the government had the necessary evidence to convict Zardari.

Leghari rejected Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif as a positive option for the country’s premiership. “He is not a substitute. He has been a disaster for the country,” Leghari said, adding that Nawaz had been given two opportunities as prime minister, but had failed the nation and destroyed the country’s institutions in a bid to consolidate his grip on power.

Talking about his own political career, Leghari said he was neither a feudal nor had a feudal mindset.

Source: Daily Times.
Link: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\12\story_12-1-2010_pg7_34.