KARACHI: PPP hints at MMA’s vital link with Establishment
By Shamim-ur-Rahman
KARACHI, April 2: The top leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party, which met party’s chairperson Ms Benazir Bhutto in Dubai recently, could not decide on the fate of the turncoats, though it emphasised the need for mobilizing the cadre to chart its own course in the evolving political situation, party sources said.
The decision to mobilize the cadre, they added, was taken because the leadership believed that elections were not far away.
Though there are reports of some administrative changes in the party echelons (as Ms Bhutto had expressed her displeasure over the handling of Senate elections, especially in Sindh where some members had allegedly voted against the party nominee), a PPP source denied that the leadership was going to make any reshuffle.
“It is bringing changes in the party’s working. The changes would be programme and plan-oriented. Besides, a reporting, monitoring and evaluating system would be put in place.” said the source.
Admitting that there were some misgivings prevailing in the party ranks, the source nevertheless said the workers were politically conscious and there was a need to lead them from the front.
In Dubai, it was also decided that the party’s coordination committees in Karachi and other parts of the country would be touring every district of their respective jurisdictions. They would go as a team and convene worker conventions. The teams would also help the local set-ups to fill up vacant party slots, the sources explained.
The aim of the exercise seems to be involving many more people directly in party activities and inducting dedicated workers in the bigger chunk of PPP offices since these would come together through worker conventions.
During their Dubai visit, the PPP leaders also reviewed the rise of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), its impact and the alliance’s dealing with the PPP on different issues. They came to the conclusion that there was nexus between the religious parties’ alliance and the establishment and perforce they had to take popular positions on democracy, anti-Americanism, etc. the sources revealed.
Some elements in the PPP leadership still believed that the MMA was formed during the local bodies elections by the ISI which was allegedly bent upon containing the PPP loyalist. They prevailed upon Maulana Noorani to support Jamaat-i-Islami for the top slot, claimed the sources.
They pointed out that in five towns of Karachi, Maulana Noorani’s candidates were on a joint panel with the PPP-backed candidates and also emerged victorious in Saddar. But, they observed, for the top slot the MMA chose to oppose the PPP-backed candidate. A barter was organized by the ISI when JI gave the Hyderabad city slot to Maulana Noorani and gained his support in Karachi, opined the PPP source claiming that it was on the foundations of this success that MMA was built with the Establishment as a major stakeholder.
The PPP source was of the view that even before the elections, he got the impression in meetings with top MMA leaders that they were quite accommodative for the Establishment.
They (MMA) were allowed to form government in the NWFP. They have a coalition with PML-Q in Balochistan. But the PPP was stopped by all methods to form its government in Sindh.
The PPP sources claimed that Maulana Noorani had reached the Senate with his party votes but the PPP lost two seats where MMA’s votes were crucial. Prof Ghafoor Ahmed reached the Senate with PML-Q votes, he asserted while drawing attention to the MMA’s working relationship with the Establishment.
Their (MMA’s) public rallies helped the government to tell the Americans about the kinds of pressure General Musharraf was facing. “These rallies projected him as the only defender of the American interests in this region,” opined the PPP source while pointing out that neither President Musharraf nor the government had uttered a word about these rallies.
He also pointed out that newspapers were openly talking about MMA joining the government. Even the names of their expected ministers were being published and no denial or comment from the MMA side on such reports was coming out.
