PPP faces internal strife as old guards hope to keep Awan out

Though the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is trying its best to resolve the standoff with the military and judiciary, it is faced with an internal strife as the presidential and prime minister’s camps are pitched against each other to choose between party’s old guards like Aitzaz Ahsan and new comrades like Babar Awan.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on January 17 had vetoed the president’s decision to reappoint Babar Awan as law minister and Gilani in a firm tone had told President Asif Ali Zardari that he would not approve the resignation of law minister Moula Bux Chandio and even if Awan was reappointed, he would not attend the oath-taking ceremony.
A well-placed PPP leader close to the prime minister admitted in an informal chat with Pakistan Today on Wednesday that the party was passing through a critical stage and the party leadership had different views on keeping Babar Awan in the federal cabinet.
“But let me tell you that truth would prevail upon the evil and the party’s top leadership would soon realise the utility of the party’s true leaders including those who had been discarded like Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who is the true face of the PPP rather than advisers like Babar Awan,” said the senior party leader.
He said during several party meetings, the party’s second-tier leaders had advised the party’s co-chairperson to mend fences with party leaders like Aitzaz Ahsan who were assets of the PPP.
“I think the party suffered a major dent the day Mian Raza Rabbani refused to accept the office of the law minister. Hence, Babar Awan was given the portfolio and this was also the start of the party’s clash with Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. As law minister, he passed on ill advice to the party leadership and thus the government took a confrontational path with the superior judiciary,” he asserted. He said with Aitzaz back in the saddle, things would improve and the government-judiciary relations would also get better.
“During the past four years, the party had adopted a negative route which did nothing but annoyed the judiciary. I myself have been a strong critic of the useless confrontation with the judiciary. Though I had to face ire of the president Asif Ali Zardari, I did not change my views and finally it has been proved that my advice was based on wisdom and was inline with the party’s stance taken by Benazir Bhutto,” he added.
“Actually, the president was given a bad advice by Babar Awan who might have personal scores to settle against the superior judiciary for whom the PPP had fought and its workers had laid down their lives,” he added. Another source when the apex court suspended Awan’s licence and the PM engaged Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan in the contempt case, Gilani came to know of the president’s decision and sent a ministerial delegation led by Khursheed Shah to convince him not to appoint Awan as the law minister.
Gilani’s opinion was that Awan’s reappointment as law minister would send a negative message to the Supreme Court at a time when the executive and the judiciary were in a standoff.
However, the source said, when the president did not budge, the prime minister called him and conveyed his unwillingness. “On this, it was agreed not to administer oath to Awan and it was also decided that he would be given some other ministerial slot and not the portfolio of law.” The source said Awan may not be given any portfolio in the near future, but would be accommodated in the Senate by re-electing him upon his retirement in March. “There is a lot of resentment in the cabinet as well as in the PPP for Awan’s reckless legal advices which are being considered a main cause of the situation the government is faced with,” the source said.