PPP re-launched

The PPP announced a ‘re-launch’ with a rally on Sunday in the historic Kakri Ground in Lyari. Addressing the gathering, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari claimed that Lyari was still a PPP fort. However, the rally showed that quite the opposite is true; the event was mainly an attempt at appeasement, not a show of popularity. Zardari announced Rs1 billion worth of development schemes for the troubled neighbourhood. He announced the creation of an engineering college in the name of Bilawal Bhutto, a new housing scheme and the regularisation of all contractual employees in the area. It seems the main aim of the public meeting was to try and get disgruntled PPP workers to trust the party again. Zardari has said that the PPP is starting its election campaign two and a half years before the next general elections. With local bodies elections around the corner, it was strange to hear of the next general elections. Among his many promises, Zardari’s promise to restore the water security of the area within three months should be the key marker for the PPP’s claim to deliver on its promises. Why this has not been done in the last eight years of PPP rule has to be explained by the party government.
The launch and re-launch policy of the PPP has drawn much humour from observers. By reasserting itself in Lyari, the PPP has shown that it is not a no-go zone as is often said to be the case. But is the PPP really taking the crisis in the party seriously? Zardari’s insistence that the party’s reins will be handed over to the youth – while the senior leadership concentrates on governance matters – appears to be a strange division of power. How can running party affairs and governance be separated? Moreover, are Bilawal and Aseefa ready to take on the role of reviving the party? And how can the party revive itself if the attempts at revival mean a return to the dynastic legacy of the Bhuttos? A look across the border on the failings of the Indian Congress and how Rahul Gandhi has become a national joke should be a lesson for Zardari. Can the PPP re-invent itself? In the hands of the existing leadership, the answer appears to be in the negative. Zardari’s plan to visit Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to revive support for the PPP appears to be doomed from the word go. The PPP is fast losing ground on the national level. The poor showing at the cantonment board polls, where the PPP could only gain seven seats countrywide is an indicator of that. The PPP’s internal crisis was evident again on Monday as the party’s Karachi leadership launched a ‘surprise’ attack on former PPP Sindh interior minister Zulfiqar Mirza calling him a ‘snake in the party’ in addition to launching a number of other allegations against him. Last week, Mirza had called Zardari his number one enemy and blamed him for Benazir’s assassination. All this has only confirmed that a major shakeup is needed in the PPP.