ISLAMABAD – The PPP core committee’s decision of replacing Fauzia Wahab with Qamar Zaman Kaira as the PPP information secretary has raised questions about the legality of the body which is not part of the ruling party’s organisational structure as envisaged in its constitution.
The core committee was neither notified nor was it approved by the party’s top decision-making body – the central executive committee. This body was created by PPP co-chairman and that too without nominating its members. According to insiders, the core committee was formed with a purpose of superseding the party’s CEC and the federal council with a view to sideline close associates of Benazir Bhutto and form as kitchen cabinet of the co-chairman’s choice to make decisions.
In all its meetings, some key ministers and party’s office-bearers were invited and it was often observed that those whom the leadership wanted to snub for any reason were not invited as it happened in the case of Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Fauzia Wahab in the last meeting. With the core committee’s decision to change the party’s information secretary, Fauzia’s name disappeared from the PPP’s official website and her replacement was also not mentioned.
Most of the PPP leaders resent the fact that the core committee was working as a kitchen cabinet for the party’s co-chairman and most of the important decisions were being taken there while the party and the federal cabinet were asked to follow these as policy decisions. Also, there is no specific list of the members of the core committee and the Presidency alone invites handpicked party leaders to the meeting.
Per the PPP structure, the CEC is the elite decision-making body of the party followed by federal and provincial councils under the party constitution. However, PPP Deputy Information Secretary Haider Zaman vehemently confronted these claims, saying that till date Fauzia was very much the party’s information secretary and she had not been de-notified.
“The core committee only discussed replacing Fauzia with Qamar Zaman Kaira. But no decision was made and this is the reason why a notification has not been issued. If the leadership took any such decision, a notification would have been issued by Rukhsana Bangash to the effect as per laid down procedure,” he said. Asked if Fauzia was still the office-bearer, why had her name been removed from the party’s website, he expressed ignorance. Haider Zaman also rejected the notion that the core committee was a non-constitutional body formed by the PPP co-chairman.
“The core committee is very much a constitutional body as then constitution empowers the party co-chairman to form core consultative groups comprising members available to him on frequent basis. Moreover, there are no blue-eyed boys in the core group as many ministers as well as other members are also part of the group,” he added. Asked if it was provided in the party’s constitution, why had Benazir Bhutto never formed any such core group, Zaman said a task force as well as sub-working groups had been formed by the PPP leadership in the past.
However, he confirmed that there was no specific notification to form the core committee and appoint its members. Former PPP information secretary Qayyum Nizami said there was no provision of a core committee in the party’s constitution. However, he said perhaps the co-chairman might have used discretionary powers to form such a high-powered body.
Asked whether the party co-chairman had such discretionary powers to form a supra-constitutional body, Nizami said there was no mention of powers in the party constitution. Asked whether there was any precedence in the party’s 44-year-long history of such a body, Nizami said there was no such precedence as well.
