ISLAMABAD: Having no viable political option in Sindh, influential figures, four in total so far, have raced toward the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) finding it the best bet with their eyes set on the 2018 general elections.
Burying the bitter past, PPP chief and former President Asif Ali Zardari is welcoming with open arms even his previous lethal tormentors to tremendously consolidate his position in Sindh, the only province where he has been left with the complete sway. A large heart like as Zardari has is needed to accept such lot specifically when it is not his political compulsion to take them in the PPP fold.
These turncoats do not see any bright electoral future of the political parties they have been associated with and firmly believed that it is only the PPP that will convincingly carry the day in 2018 once again.
The PPP’s hold over Sindh is unchallengeable and it is going to be unassailable in 2018 as well. While most of those still associated with it in other parts of Pakistan particularly Punjab keep appraising other available political options, it is attracting electables from other parties and even those who did not carry much political weight and relevance but had been previously important in the political field for different reasons.
In reality, there is no political force worth the name in the interior region of Sindh that is in a position to pose any grave threat to the PPP’s imposing standing. The nationalists just specialize in raising slogans, having no strength to win even one national or provincial seat.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is not serious in having a say in Sindh. Its provincial chapter is in total disarray. Since there is no apparent desire in the top party hierarchy to gain ground in this province, the PML-N will remain on the sidelines and irrelevant in Sindh even in the 2018 polls leaving it to the PPP to rule the roost single-handed. Its provincial organizational structure is in a complete mess, rather non-existent.
Because of this state of affairs, three of PML-N’s senior leaders from Sindh have to be elected to the Senate from Punjab and the federal capital after they proved that they were big political nobodies there. Its only member of the National Assembly from this province switched sides a few months ago.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) raises only too much noise without doing any spadework to win any election. Sindh is the least priority of its chairman Imran Khan and the past four years have been a clear witness to his political preferences. Its provincial chapter is in tatters, having no solid edifice required for a party that stood second in terms of popular votes in Karachi city. It poses no threat to the PPP in rural Sindh.
The absence of any paramount challenge has made the PPP invincible rather king in Sindh even at a time when it has the lowest public standing in other areas of Pakistan that had spawned an unprecedented beating for it in the 2013 polls. Its total control over the interior region is Zardari’s major bargaining chip and makes him a powerful political player at the national level.
It came as a big surprise when Zardari accepted Nabeel Gabol back in the PPP. This mercurial man has been severely slamming the PPP, dubbing its Sindh government as the most corrupt Pakistan has ever known. He has also been personally attacking Zardari. After remaining associated with the PPP, he left it a few years back and had contested the 2013 elections on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) ticket.
However, true to his peculiar temperament he also abandoned the MQM and was desperate to join one party or the other. He rubbed shoulders with the PTI, which apparently was not willing to take him. After finding no other plausible political choice, he went to the PPP that received him without any reservations.
Before him in September last, Abdul Hakeem Baloch, who had been elected on the PML-N ticket from Karachi in 2013, switched loyalties and joined the PPP. He worked for some two years as the minister of state for communications during the present government. Before being affiliated with the PML-N he was with the PPP.
Nadir Laghari, associated with the PTI, is another new gain of the PPP. During Pervez Musharraf’s regime, he had served as irrigation and power minister in Sindh from 2002 to 2007 and was with the PML-Q. He had jumped on the PTI bandwagon in 2010 and was made the president of its Sindh chapter in March 2013 and Chairman of Insaf Professionals Forum Sindh. He had not contested the 2013 elections, but had lost from Ghotki to the PPP in 2008.
The fourth new entrant in the PPP is Irfanullah Khan Marwat. His acceptance showed Zardari’s matchless ‘large-heartedness’ and political accommodation, forgetting the sorry path. Marwat was the most powerful man in the Jam Sadiq Ali cabinet when his father-in-law Ghulam Ishaq Khan was the president of Pakistan. Those were the worst days for the PPP especially Zardari and Benazir Bhutto in Sindh when the president was out to decimate the PPP and his son-in-law was the main henchman against it.
Many unseemly tales and controversies of that era spoke about Marwat’s involvement. One of them implicated him in the infamous Veena Hayat case in which Miss Farhana 'Veena' Hayat, daughter of veteran Muslim League politician Sardar Shaukat Hayat and close friend of Benazir Bhutto, was allegedly gang-raped by some criminals. However, Marwat was never asked questions about this episode. In 2013, he was elected on the PML-N ticket from PS-114 Karachi. He had been Sindh minister for several times and held numerous portfolios including transport, health, home, education and mines and mineral development.
