While the PPP scores own goals

Hina Rabbani Khar’s reported plan to join the PTI along with her father carries the potential of accelerating the fall of the PPP’s ‘wickets’ in Punjab. The trend was set by defection of the PPP cadre in Okara led by former minister of state Samsam Bokhari. There are rumours of many more defections as the local bodies elections draw nearer.
Those leaving the party have also shown their lack of confidence in Manzoor Wattoo’s lacklustre stewardship of the party’s affairs in the largest province. All told, the PTI has scored another victory on the path to its inexorable rise as the country’s second political force, making the PPP look more like a single province party.
This latest misfortune hit the PPP while it was still trying to recover from Asif Zardari’s own goal, scored by lambasting the Rangers operations against organised crime in Karachi. Many Pakistanis, including elements in the PPP, were perplexed by the unprecedented bravado of their leader.
There are various factors behind Zardari’s increasing sense of insecurity. The Sindh chief minister’s complaints to the prime minister against the Rangers affirm in a more technical manner what Zardari showed through an emotional outburst.
Karachi’s partial recovery from terror and organised crime has been made possible by the Rangers’ systematic defiance of the diarchic hold of MQM-PPP over the city. The two cannot fathom an alternative and more ethical system of managing the affairs of the mega city.
Both parties feel threatened by the campaign to sanitise the city of a mindboggling culture of corrupt practices to fill their parties’ coffers and enrich the leaders. Their shared sense of adversity or persecution can lead to a modus vivendi between the two. However, recent disclosures about the MQM’s alleged links with India and the progress in the Imran Farooq murder case have pushed the Altaf camp to a corner.
The PPP’s affairs are no less complicated by Bilawal’s coming of age. He is seen by some – rather naively – as the party’s only hope to stay relevant in national politics. The Oxford-educated PPP chairman may try to change the medieval mindset that has been running the party since Benazir’s death. Then, there is the primordial fear that keeping in line with the Mughal tradition, the young prince could sideline and dethrone the emperor.
Bilawal’s ideas of improving the methods of governance and bringing in young blood must be anathema to the father steeped in anachronistic traditions. Zardari has been openly talking about grooming the young prince before re-launching him. It appears that the re-launch has occurred with or without the father’s blessings. There cannot be two ways about running the party, which after all is a family enterprise. It’s either the Dad’s syndicate way or the son’s more straightforward and (hopefully) modern approach.
It must be acknowledged that the party had been orphaned by Benazir’s sudden and untimely departure. There was a wave of sympathy assuring the the PPP’s success in the 2008 election. The result might not have been as successful if Zardari had not taken control of the party machinery, leading it to victory. He managed to first see off Musharraf and then become an all-powerful president seeing his party’s government through a full term, completing his own term and smoothly handing power to the Nawaz Sharif in 2013.
Gone are the days when Zardari wielded extraordinary powers by virtue of being the party leader and the head of state at the same time. His selection of prime ministers lacking leadership qualities or managerial acumen might have been convenient for himself but a setback to the country as well as the party’s fortunes in Punjab.
Rather than leading the party’s election campaign in 2013, the two former chief executives were seen as liabilities compared to the seasoned Sharif brothers and Imran’s romping colts.
The PTI’s emergence as the main opposition party in Punjab in the 2013 elections showed which way the wind was blowing for the party. The PTI has now overtaken the PPP as the principal opposition party to the ruling PML-N – something to worry about not only for the house of Sharif but also for Zardari, Bilawal and Altaf, who all feel threatened like never before.
In a time of shifting loyalties, the forthcoming local elections will be the perfect battleground to measure the evolving strength of various political formations. That, however, should not scare the PML-N. The more it delays the local bodies polls the greater chances of it reaping a bitter harvest.
Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com