Despite the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders’ condemnation of the Lahore High Court (LHC) verdict in President Asif Ali Zardari’s dual office case, President Zardari has restricted his political activities and no meeting has been held at the presidency with PPP leaders since May 11.
However, at the same time, the president has still not resigned from his political office – he is the co-chairman of the PPP – which was a central point in the LHC verdict.
“No meeting has been held by the president with PPP leaders that are not members of parliament or the provincial assemblies. It looks like the president has strictly restricted his activities in adherence to the court order,” said a source at the presidency.
Moreover, the reluctance by the presidency to move the apex court against the LHC verdict reflects the fact that the president’s legal advisers have advised him against such a move, as they either feel that their case is weak or the president thinks it unwise to move the court at this juncture, since the apex court is already hearing the presidential reference on the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto case.
The source said further that it was almost routine for the president to continuously interact with the party’s top brass and such meetings were mostly held at the presidency or at Bilawal House in Karachi.
Zardari had last convened a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee in Larkana on April 3, while the party’s core committee meeting had been convened at the Aiwan-e-Sadr on April 18. Since then, no party meeting has been convened at the presidency.
The LHC verdict, however, seems not to have affected the president’s political activities much, as most PPP leaders are also either members of parliament or members of the provincial assemblies.
PPP Secretary General Jahangir Badr is a senator, Information Secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira is a National Assembly member (MNA), Provincial Presidents Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Nawab Aslam Raisani are chief ministers of Sindh and Balochistan respectively, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) President Zahir Shah is a member of the KP Assembly, and the Gilgat-Baltistan (GB) President Mehdi Shah is also the GB chief minister.
“Since all the party’s important leaders are members of parliament or provincial assemblies, the president is well-connected with the party without holding political meetings,” said a party official.
“Taj Haider is the only provincial general secretary who is not a member of any assembly, but since he is not in the good books of the president, there is no issue,” he added.
Presidential Spokesman Farhatullah Babar was not available for comment.