'PPP-led coalition most incompetent'

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan warns Pakistan's situation will deteriorate further if Asif Ali Zardari's becomes its president.

Terming the PPP-led coalition government as "most incompetent" in Pakistan's history, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said the country's situation will deteriorate further if Asif Ali Zardari's becomes its President.

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"The economy is heading towards a meltdown. There is no way Pakistan can win this prolonged war against militants, and this government is the most incompetent in our history," Khan, chief of Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) Party, told UK's leading daily.

"In these circumstances, this government is not going to last long. For the next six months I would predict you should hang on to your seatbelt. There is going to be a lot of turbulence ahead," he said.

He claimed that the country is facing the prospects of a civil war and Zardari, poised to be country's President, is incapable of dealing with the troubled nation's economic and security problems.

Khan derided Zardari as 'Musharraf Mark II - another American puppet".

"If the government persists with a very unpopular American policy of fighting terrorism there could be anarchy and destabilisation. Under Musharraf it was heading towards civil war, and with Zardari I think the deterioration could happen more quickly," he said.

Khan warned that grave trouble could lie further in the future because of growing anger among the young in the tribal areas over Pakistani military action against Islamists - a battle that many Pakistanis regard as being carried out on America's orders.

"The war on terror has radicalised moderate people who in the past would have had no truck with the Talibans," he added.