Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani on Friday said that Pakistan's history had been chequered with interference from non-democratic forces, but democracy finally seemed to be taking root.
Talking about the country's current political situation, Rabbani said, "The country has seen 18 prime ministers de-seated. This was the establishment's plot all along."
"It was a well thought out plan; however, they did not anticipate that democracy would slowly take root in this country. We saw that when Yousuf Raza Gilani was removed from power, a new prime minister took his place; the same happened when Nawaz was recently removed," Rabbani added.
Reiterating a point made last week, Rabbani said that all pillars of the state need to come together to solve the country's problems as "enough games have been played with this nation."
"Pakistan's ideology was changed and twisted into something it was not and the idea of a welfare state was turned into the idea of a national security state," he said.
The outspoken senator also said that if the government and those in power are not taking the country in the right direction, the common man should rise up and take charge.
Talking about the Sindh government's efforts to repeal the National Accountability Ordinance in the province, Rabbani said: "Whenever there is talk about the rights of provinces, people are termed traitors as the centre wants to withhold powers. However, we forget that four of the Quaid-i-Azam's 14 points were about provincial autonomy."
Taking the point further, he said, "If we call ourselves Pakistanis first, people take offence and say why have we not called ourselves Muslim first. These fads suit the country's elite."
"Sindh is not the only province to have done away with the NAB ordinance, but our [the PPP's] decision was taken to court," he noted, observing that Khyber Pukhtunkhawa had already come up with its accountability setup.
