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WHERE all the written and spoken words that have served as political obituaries of the PPP may have been inadequate in one way or another a photograph of the foundation day celebrations in Lahore was all-encompassing and eloquent.
Just take a look at last Wednesday’s Dawn and you’ll know yourself what’s being said. A photograph shows party leader Asif Ali Zardari holding the knife poised over the cake with three leaders, two former prime ministers among them, who, like him are not untainted by substantive corruption charges.
Also, among others in the frame, (possibly with one exception) none belongs to the age group nearly 90pc of the country’s population and the bulk of the voting public is from. And these factors don’t worry the party at all or it would have done something about it.
Also read: Zardari vows to protect democracy
This foundation day function, at the party leader’s fortress-like Bilawal House in Lahore’s Bahria Town (whether paid for or gifted by the Malik Riaz), was in marked contrast to the day Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and other founding members gave the party its formal shape in the modest garden at the back of Dr Mubashir Hassan’s equally modest Gulberg home.
The last elections, particularly in Punjab, were such a humiliating setback for the PPP that one would have thought soul-searching, a no-holds-barred internal debate to focus on every single reason for the debacle, would have been the party’s top priority.
Given the abject failure of the current Punjab PPP leadership, it would also have been safe to assume, a new generation of leaders would have been brought to the fore to appeal to a new generation of voters who have been brought up in today’s (non-ideological) world.
Rather than play on the front foot, the PPP has left the ground wide open for the PTI to slam PML-N.
The only indication that the party hierarchy, and I’ll narrow this down to the former president and his sister who, in effect, calls almost all the shots on her brother’s behalf, was aware of this crucial new reality was that it was suggested that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was being thrown into the political arena.
The Punjab PPP jiyala, commentators suggested, who had had enough of leaders distant from the people when proximity is what he/she has thrived on was suddenly energised. What Wattoo didn’t have any hope of achieving even with his best effort the young Bilawal could with just a smile and a handshake.
Then it was announced that Bilawal would not attend the celebrations. When I asked in a Tweet if this meant the PPP was writing off Punjab, another social media user, Adnan Izmael, quipped this was so because it was the other way around, ie no point in the young leader attending since Punjab had written the party off. Too harsh? Perhaps.
But didn’t the PPP leadership reinforce this impression when it didn’t even consider it necessary to explain to the loyal workers gathered at the function their young leader’s absence? In fact, the leadership did worse. When a vocal worker got up to ask why Bilawal wasn’t there and expressed disappointment, his microphone was quickly turned off, said media reports.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP drew the bulk of its strength from Punjab. One need only look at the party’s share of parliamentary seats from the province in the 1970 and 1977 polls. Of course as Zia brutalised the party and nurtured political rivals, the PPP’s task got harder and harder in the 1980s.
However, even under Benazir Bhutto, the party never appeared to be forsaking the country’s largest province without which it would be impossible to form a government at the centre and implement any meaningful pro-people reform agenda.
So is the PPP now content to govern Sindh and Sindh alone? Mr Zardari’s avowed policy of ‘not undermining’ the elected government for fear of empowering a ‘third force’ is all very well but the reality is the PML-N is tottering and teetering in its power base.
To what else would one attribute the Model Town incident and more recently the Punjab police’s brutal action (no, not against the sectarian Lashkar-i-Jhangvi but) against the visually-impaired demonstrating for their constitutional rights.
Rather than play on the front foot, the PPP has left the ground wide open for the Imran Khan-led PTI to slam the PML-N for its excesses and widen its support base in the numerically superior and electorally critical majority province.
Whether it was the failed no-confidence vote against the first Benazir Bhutto-led government in the late 1980s, the election of Farooq Leghari as president in the 1990s or his own election as president following the 2008 polls, Asif Ali Zardari has proved himself a master of political wheeling and dealing.
Equally, he is a master ‘fundraiser’ but frankly has never been a man of the people as the reaction to his insipid public speeches demonstrates. Neither can he galvanise mass support. So unless the PPP brings to the fore young blood with fresh ideas it will confine itself to Sindh where, despite such poor governance, it seems to be the only real choice so far.
“All Sindhis have struggled for democracy. Many of us see the PML-N and PTI as Punjab-based parties. The Sindhi nationalists are in utter disarray. When the MQM became Muttahida some of us middle-class Sindhis were excited but it is now back under its Mohajir comfort blanket. We aren’t left with too many choices,” explains Sachal Ujjan, a shrewd political worker from Naushero Feroz.
Perhaps, with the last NFC award giving Sindh a huge boost in resources, the party would be content with ruling in its niche. But its lack of delivery is creating a time-bomb ticking in every madressah. And thousands have mushroomed in recent years.
If the PPP doesn’t get its act together it won’t know what hit it. Sadly, all inhabitants of Sindh will have to pay the price.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn December 6th , 2014
