Bilawal calling

The PPP’s annual      October 18     rally in Karachi to mark the attack on Benazir Bhutto’s convoy in 2007 is always a reminder of the party’s continued street power, even in a city where its support is restricted to a few areas. This year’s rally – held on October 16 – was no different as tens of thousands of people marched from Bilawal House to Karsaz and a fiery speech by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari confidently asserted a return to the party’s glory days. There certainly is an opening for the PPP in Karachi, with the MQM in a state of disarray, and even at the national level. But the PPP, reduced only to its base of rural Sindh after five disastrous years of governance at the national level, has done nothing to expand its popularity in the country and one rally alone will not restore the party to its former glory. While the content of his address was not insignificant, the style of delivery drew special attention with the young Bhutto, who banks on his family name, resorting to the same high-pitched slightly histrionic tone that for him seems to have become the norm of public speaking. It is unclear who has tutored Bilawal, who also still struggles with language, in this style but it is not always pleasant to watch, while his jibes at other political leaders far his senior in terms of years and experience are sometimes in poor taste.

Bilawal tried to be stirring in threatening a long march to Islamabad on Benazir’s death anniversary if four demands of the PPP were not met. His demands included constituting a parliamentary national security committee, appointing a permanent foreign minister and implementing resolutions adopted by the All-Parties Conference on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It is curious that the PPP has always often tried to distance itself from Imran Khan’s brand of politics and yet Bilawal was proposing the same solution – a long march to Islamabad – for the same complaint, of the government not accepting opposition demands on the Panama Papers leaks, as the PTI. Interestingly, in the same speech Bilawal also mocked the selection of a ‘player’ to hunt down a ‘lion’. There is no reason to believe the PPP would be any more successful than the PTI has so far been in following this strategy. In that respect, it is hard to declare the rally a success. But the rally did serve the purpose of demonstrating that the PPP is not an entirely spent force yet and that Bilawal may be able to step out of his parents’ shadows and emerge as the party’s true leader. He sounded passionate in standing up for the rights of Kashmiris and denouncing Narendra Modi. He was critical of the PML-N government’s policies on India. This is of course easy to do when one is not tasked with the responsibility relevant to such issues and only time can tell what the PPP under him can do that will be different to the policies not only of the PML-N government but also those of the PPP in the past. He talked about his party’s connection to Lyari but that will not be enough to get the PPP out of its electoral rut. The rally shows his party’s discontent at being practically reduced to a provincial entity and that it intends to attain a national presence once again. For this to happen, Bilawal now has to move beyond the politics that exploits martyrdoms of past leaders. Developing an ability to do so, gaining his own style of leadership and persuading the people that he has something to offer them will be his key challenges in the months and years ahead.