Bilawal calls for unity via ‘political reset’, urges PM to build trust with allies and opposition

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday called for a “political reset”, wherein all political parties must unite for the sake of the country, and urged the prime minister to take measures to build trust with allies and the opposition.

The PPP scion was addressing an event to mark the completion of one million houses for flood affectees under the Sindh Flood Resilience Project (SFRP), which he said “made history” by being the largest house-building programme in the world.

“The Sindh government has built one million houses, and when this project is completed, we would have built two million houses,” Bilawal said.

Referring to the ongoing oil and energy crisis due to the US-Iran war, he said that Pakistan and the world were facing an “economic catastrophe” and stressed that “Pakistan’s politics will definitely have to be reset” to combat it.

“But via this reset, political parties will have to work together instead of fighting,” he added.

Emphasising that the public did not want to witness further fighting, the Bhutto scion reiterated, “We need a political reset.”

He invited Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to first “restore trust of his allies”, then of opposition parties, “instead of picking new fights with them”.

The former foreign minister contended that the ongoing economic crisis was one of the worst in the world’s history, and therefore, support of all Pakistanis, including those in the opposition, was needed to face it.

“Unless we face this crisis together, we would not be able to save our people from this difficulty.”

As he highlighted the efforts of his PPP’s provincial government, Bilawal particularly thanked the premier for the Centre’s support in the flood rehabilitation projects.

Without naming PTI founder Imran Khan, the PPP chairman said that a predecessor of Shehbaz “did not give us a single penny” to help the flood-hit people of Sindh.

“He even said ‘Sindh is not ours’, but Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has at least not made us feel this,” Bilawal said.

He attributed SFRP’s success to Sindh’s efforts, international support and “cooperation of the Centre”.

The PPP chairman said that some politicians believed that the country would make progress if it was reset and run according to the wishes of the rich and business class; however, he believed that it should be run according to the will of the poor and homeless.

“During the days of the flooding, our enemies were saying that we (PPP) were only making this much effort to make money,” he said, referring to the initiative to build homes for those affected by the 2022 floods.

He also suggested that the Sindh chief minister write to international corruption monitors and invite them to investigate the housing initiative, declaring that “there is no corruption in this scheme”.

“As we are facing a financial crisis, the people of Sindh who are enduring historic poverty, inflation and unemployment are receiving financial security,” the PPP chairman said. “This is the responsibility of every government, party and Pakistan’s people.”

“I can tell the people of Sindh that every project, whether it is a historic housing project or free hospital care, aims to lift the financial burden off the people’s shoulders,” he added.

The European Investment Bank’s international development arm, EIB Global, is providing a €100m loan to the government for the initiative, which aims to rebuild around 2.1m rural homes damaged by devastating floods in 2022.

The project has a total cost of almost $2 billion and covers 40 per cent of rural households in Sindh.

The provincial government has also sought financial assistance of $350m from the World Bank for the project for the fiscal year 2026-2027.