Given the right to a free ballot, the people would support my return.

The next decade cannot be a decade of confrontation and contention. It cannot be east vs. West. It cannot be men vs. women. It cannot be Islam vs. Christianity. That is what the enemies of dialogue want.

Our people are dying, poverty and unemployment are on the rise, but the rest of the world says that Musharraf is needed because [only] he can stop nuclear proliferation, [only] he [can launch] an operation in the tribal areas. So he manipulates and dangles some kind of carrot in front of the world all the time. This is not good for the people [of Pakistan], and I think the world has got it all wrong.

Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.

What is important is that a political party articulates the mood of a generation.

I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly.

Dictatorships by their nature are unrepresentative as they neglect the social needs of the people.