A house in disorder
PPP Co-Chairman Asif Zardari has been trying to reorganise the party for some time now. Much needed to be done, of course, after the ’13 election rout reduced it to pretty much a provincial party – and not a very effective one at that. Whether he was fine tuning a detailed strategy or just procrastinating will probably not be known, but PTI’s dharna pressure late last year, and chances of the government falling, made him spring his plans into action sooner rather than later. Not only did Zardari try to streamline things in Punjab himself, he also pushed Bilawal ahead of time.
The reasoning, seemingly, was that if the government did fall and elections were called, Bilawal would help restore the party’s position in Punjab. It’s a good thing, Zardari must have subsequently thought, that the government did not fall and elections were not announced. Despite his best efforts, the party remains disunited. The Bilawal card did not quite work out either, and the former president had to fight a long public relations battle to counter rumours of a split between father and son, implying more trouble for the party in already very hard times.
Zardari’s visit to Peshawar, too, was meant to whip up support. And being the crafty old hand that he is at political maneuvering, he naturally began by taking jabs at PTI’s less than inspiring control of KP so far. But it will take more than PTI’s foot-dragging on IDPs, for example, to breathe fresh life in PPP, especially that far up in the north. Also, once again there is talk of Bilawal coming to help with local body polls. Interestingly, even though the former president was spared the kind of embarrassment former prime minister Raja Pervez faced at the hands of Peshawar jiyalas, it does not seem as if too many people took his words too seriously. It is also true that the Taliban did not allow PPP to campaign last time like it did other, less secular, parties just like PTI. And the party did give Pashtuns their identity – as in the name of their province. But banking on what has been is not the best way to plot the future, especially in Pakistan’s troubled world of politics where people tend to have very short memories. PPP will have to pull its act together, and it must do a better job especially in Punjab, where even its best efforts have failed to revive party fortunes. From its perspective, the longer general elections take, the better.
