With fears of being pushed to the back seat on the national political arena, PPP Co-chairman President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday finally broke all legal restrictions on him by chairing a PPP party meeting of the Punjab chapter and taking crucial decisions, including making a principle decision that Punjab would be made a battlefield against the PML-N government and that the president would himself lead the party from the front.
Zardari is set to relinquish his charge as head of the state on September 8 completing his five-year constitutional term – a rare accomplishment for any political leader.
During the meeting, the PPP’s top leadership also decided to shun the role of “friendly opposition” and give a tough time to the PML-N government. It is likely the party would soon demand the PML-N government to form commissions on the Kargil operation besides asking for a truth and reconciliation commission as agreed between the PPP and PML-N in the Charter of Democracy (CoD), a top party leader told Pakistan Today following the meeting.
Both these clauses however were never implemented by the PPP government in its five-year rule.
Formation of a constitutional court is another point agreed in the CoD that has still not been implemented by both parties.
Former PPP prime ministers Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf as well as former parliamentarians, including Manzoor Wattoo, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, Nazar Muhammad Gondal, Raja Riaz, Rana Farooq Ahmad, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Latif Khosa, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, and Mehreen Anwar Raja, Rehman Malik, Jahangir Badar, Farhatullah Babar, Rukhsana Bangash and Fouzia Habib attended the meeting.
Under the strategy, the PPP leader said, the meeting rejected Punjab government’s decision to hold local government polls on non-party basis.
“The president also said the PPP should not allow the PTI to play the role of the main opposition in Punjab and that the PPP should generate activity outside the Punjab Assembly to overshadow PTI’s leadership in Punjab. The party decided to snatch Punjab back from the jaws of the PML-N and the PTI,” the PPP leader added.
“We have also decided that the PPP legislators will come down hard on the government in all the assemblies to push the PTI lawmakers back. We will take advantage of the space created by the PTI,” the source added.
The source said the matter of non-party based local bodies elections in Punjab would be the main focus of the PPP and the party would leave no stone unturned to build a strong opposition in Punjab.
The PPP leader added that the fast increasing inflation rate and long hours of load shedding would also be taken up initially inside assemblies and later at public forums, including TV channels.
Spokesperson to the President Senator Farhatullah Babar said the attendees of the meeting congratulated the president on successfully completing his five-year tenure.
An official statement quoted President Zardari as saying that the PPP would continue working for democracy, supremacy of parliament and the uplift of the people of the country. He said the ongoing smooth and peaceful transition of power from one democracy to another showed maturity of democracy and development of democratic norms and culture in the country.
