Apology and after

Published September 30, 2014
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. — AFP file photo
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. — AFP file photo

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s message to party workers and followers is reminiscent of the sentiments of a general who is striving to keep his troops together for the next battle.

In an open letter, he has apologised to those who may have reason to part ways with the PPP and has asked the disillusioned to stay put a while longer, making it incumbent upon himself and Asif Ali Zardari to take some drastic steps towards the party’s revival.

The PPP has not only been reduced to a regional party, more or less confined to Sindh, its support is considered emotionally inspired. It has drawn widespread criticism for not keeping pace with the people who have far more at stake today than backing a political party purely out of their love for the ‘martyrs’ the party has produced.

Declaring one’s intention to take up where Ms Benazir Bhutto left off can only be meaningful if the PPP is willing to back its words with reorganisation along practical, result-oriented lines all over the country.

The old stories about how the PPP once swayed Pakistanis across various divides are now mere opium that can only make those at the party’s helm oblivious to the current realities.

It was easier for the PPP in the 1960s during the years leading to its founding. The repair now is a much more sensitive job, not least because others have been more inventive and mobile than the PPP, and the debate about whether or not they have moved in the right direction is a luxury which Bilawal Bhutto Zardari cannot afford at the moment.

The simple reality is that the people have found themselves choices and a new force to challenge the long-time PPP opponent — the PML-N — that had over all these decades provided an automatic justification for the existence of the PPP. The PTI is a challenge to grapple with. Imran Khan appears to have eaten deep into the PPP support base particularly in Punjab comprising anti-PML-N pockets — and the PPP’s policy of playing the appendage of PML-N is further harming its cause.

To say that apologies are solutions would be as futile as dismissing this message by the PPP chairman as an instrument of surrender.

For whatever it is worth, his letter does provide broad lines of policy and identifies the PPP with the ‘left-wing’ forces. It falls short of stating the obvious about who controls the politics in the country, but at the same time does promise resistance to “right-wing parties” that “appease” the extremists.

For practical reasons, the edgy PPP jiyala would be hoping that these appeasers in the new party rule book would include both the PTI and PML-N. Though this is a dangerous course, this ideological focus is as crucial to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and his party’s rise as to the effort to organise at the grass roots.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014

Opinion

Editorial

Defining extremism
Updated 18 Mar, 2024

Defining extremism

Redefining extremism may well be the first step to clamping down on advocacy for Palestine.
Climate in focus
18 Mar, 2024

Climate in focus

IN a welcome order by the Supreme Court, the new government has been tasked with providing a report on actions taken...
Growing rabies concern
18 Mar, 2024

Growing rabies concern

DOG-BITE is an old problem in Pakistan. Amid a surfeit of public health challenges, rabies now seems poised to ...
Provincial share
Updated 17 Mar, 2024

Provincial share

PPP has aptly advised Centre to worry about improving its tax collection rather than eying provinces’ share of tax revenues.
X-communication
17 Mar, 2024

X-communication

IT has now been a month since Pakistani authorities decided that the country must be cut off from one of the...
Stateless humanity
17 Mar, 2024

Stateless humanity

THE endless hostility between India and Pakistan has reduced prisoners to mere statistics. Although the two ...