The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) demand for a recount; Tahirul Qadri’s rage (explained only if one resorts to conspiracies about hidden hands and establishments) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’ (PML-N) woes (mostly of its own making) are old news by now.

What is new, however, is the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) latest outburst.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari suddenly broke his silence from Dubai and came out in support of the PTI’s demands of a recount in four constituencies or more and lashed out at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

It was a hard-hitting statement, in which the former president said, "The heavens will not fall if [PTI’s demand for a recount] is accepted."

He then added that the people had elected Mr Sharif as prime minister, not as a "monarch" with absolute power to interfere in the affairs of the provinces.

Senator Farhatullah Babar, who released the statement, dismissed the perception that Zardari’s statement of support meant that the PPP was gearing up to join Imran Khan’s long march.

“Mr Zardari in his statement has mentioned two important facts – one that the PPP has accepted the results of the last general elections for the sake of democracy and two it has also accepted that the people have elected Nawaz Sharif as their prime minister.”

Some people are misreading the statement, he added.

However, Babar’s innocuous explanations have not been accepted by everyone.

'Nawaz was elected as PM, not absolute monarch'

The PML-N, of course, puts Zardari’s outburst down to the Islamabad-Sindh friction over the Karachi operation. According to government officials, the controversy over the appointment of a new inspector general (IG) of police in Sindh has provoked the PPP.

The provincial government recently removed the IG – it was reported that he was averse to some allegedly shady weapons procurement deal that the PPP was pushing through. Since the IG’s removal, federal government officials have been trying to claim that such steps by the provincial government have slowed the operation in Karachi.

In addition, the federal government is not agreeing to the officer the Sindh government wants as the new IG.

“Hopefully, the issue will be resolved soon,” a top aide to the prime minister claimed.

However, others are not willing to see the former president’s statement as the result of a temporary standoff.

A PPP activist, who has worked closely with the former president, described Zardari’s statement as evidence that the main opposition party in the National Assembly was now gearing up to play its role.

Indeed, the PPP, which is the largest opposition party in the parliament, has so far played a very docile role on the floor of the house. This has surprised many because the PPP has always been known for being at its best when it plays the role of opposition.

But this is about to change, if the PPP leader is to be believed.

He explained that the president’s statement came after much debate and heartburn in the party over the docility that the PPP has displayed so far.

He said many senior PPP leaders had conveyed this concern to the PPP leadership. In a series of meetings with Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto, party leaders told the two that if the party continued to yield space to the PTI (in terms of opposing the PML-N), the PPP would never recover from its 2013 defeat in the Punjab.

In fact, the despondency that has afflicted the PPP’s Punjab members is no secret. Many of those who lost the 2013 election have been openly discussing their sense of frustration at the party’s inability to consolidate in the province where the PTI is now emerging as the face of the opposition to the PML-N.

Zardari backs demand for vote recount on four seats

A former PPP member of the National Assembly told Dawn that in a meeting held in Karachi in the last week of July, "We categorically informed senior party leaders that if the party’s politics did not change, the PPP would be wiped out from the province."

According to him, the leadership was told that at a time when all Punjab-based political parties (PTI, PML-Q and so on) were doing their best to play opposition to the PML-N, the PPP was simply missing from the scene.

He added that at this meeting “the leadership agreed to pay special attention to the party in Punjab.”

It is this pressure that has forced the party leadership to issue more than one statement in recent days that has been aimed at causing the PML-N discomfort.

Some observers are even viewing Yousuf Raza Gilani’s statement on retired general Pervez Musharraf (in which he said that Musharraf was allowed to leave after a deal that included the ruling party) as part of the same process.

However, this is not to say that the PPP will become part of any anti-government alliance or destablise it. “But expect more statements targeting the PML-N,” promises one PPP leader.

One can only hope that if the PPP is finally ready to assume its natural role, it will mean – at the very least – more interesting parliamentary sessions which till now have been rather dull.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2014