Despite having reservations with the party central leadership over its likely alliance with Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders in Sindh have accepted the decision as their party’s political strategy on national level. However, they still have some serious reservations in terms of local politics.
Most of the party leaders in Sindh, including elected representatives, are of the opinion that accepting PML-Q as a major coalition partner, especially at provincial level, will do the party great political damage among the masses. They think that the PPP’s workers and staunch supporters are not ready to accept the PML-Q as a coalition partner because they had been their strong opponents in the past.
Though reluctant to express such reservations publicly, majority of the party’s first and second line leadership in Sindh have put across their concerns at their meetings. Some of them have publicly expressed their reservations, saying they cannot remain silent as they will face resentment from workers and voters. The PPP-Thatta leadership has strongly reacted to reports about the decision to induct the Shirazis – the party’s political opponents – in the provincial cabinet.
“I do not like the move, which is strange and against the party’s interests,” said Sindh Culture Minister Sassui Palijo, who is the PPP’s only female Sindh Assembly MPA elected on general seat in the last elections. Talking with Pakistan Today, she said there is great resentment on the issue among the party’s activists and supporters in her district. The PPP workers had faced the worst kind of political victimisation, including bloody attacks, by the Shirazis, when they were in power during the previous government under Pervez Musharraf, she added.
“Shirazis did not even spare me and my family, and armed attacks were carried out on us during election campaigns,” she recalled.
Similar views were also expressed by Arbab Wazir Memon – PPP district president in Thatta. “The party leadership has not taken its Thatta leadership into confidence over the decision. If the Shirazis are inducted in the government, they would start targeting the party in the district,” he remarked.
Though former Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim is currently associated with PML-Likeminded, another faction of the PML-Q, most of the PPP leaders apprehend the possible flexibility of their party’s leadership. They link their reservations with the PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s reported demand that the PPP leadership allows Rahim to return to the country.
The ex-chief minister is living in self exile in Dubai for the past three years and has been unwilling to return due to resentment towards him among the PPP supporters. Rahim is a sitting MPA but has not attended a Sindh Assembly session ever since he came to take the oath, after being elected, but one PPP supporter attacked him with a shoe inside the assembly building.
