ISLAMABAD: Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto led from the front in the battle for democracy against all sorts of bonapartes and extremists.

She believed in a moderate and pluralistic Pakistan where ballot determined the ultimate choice of the people and where the House elected by the people representing their will was supreme. She also fought courageously against the militants and extremists bent upon forcing their ideological agenda on the people through brute force.

On the eve of her 59th birth day the nation wish to reiterate their commitment to the values of supremacy of the Parliament and the Constitution and the building of a modern, egalitarian and pluralistic society in which everyone is allowed opportunity to help shape his or her own destiny--values for which she stood and fought for and when the time came even laid down her life for it.

In his message President Asif Ali Zardari said, As she shed her blood in the fight against militancy and for the supremacy of the Parliament and the Constitution I ask the Party workers to donate blood on this day for all those who have also shed their blood or suffered otherwise for Pakistan.

To mark the occasion, blood donation camps have been arranged all over Pakistan; both by PPP chapters in various cities and other organisations as well.

In Karachi, various camps have been set up by the party’s local chapter in addition to one set up by the National Bank of Pakistan at its head office in collaboration with the Peoples Doctors’ Forum. The Fatimid Foundation has set up various camps all across Sindh as well.

On her birthday let us recall the advice she gave to the people a few weeks before her assassination: "The nation should continue the fight against extremism, dictatorship, poverty and ignorance". It was not a mere slogan; she acted upon it herself by leading the fight from the front.