PESHAWAR: The latest deadline of April 10 set by the annoyed activists of Pakistan Peoples Party to the central leadership for holding intra-party elections may divide the party into two visible groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The warning, which was given on the eve of 36th death anniversary of the party’s founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, shows that the annoyed activists of PPP are serious about fielding own candidates in the coming local government (LG) elections.

The decision, if implemented by the disgruntled workers, would benefit the candidates of the ruling alliance of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan in the province.

They are opposed to the alliance with Awami National Party and have warned that none of the PPP workers would caste vote in support of the candidates of the tripartite opposition alliance of the PPP, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Awami National Party. The disgruntled activists also include several former lawmakers and office-bearers of the party in the province.

“We have conveyed our reservations to PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari about the ‘integrity’ of the sitting office-bearers of the party and requested him to hold intra-party elections so that the workers can elect people of their choice,” Syed Ayub Shah said while talking to this correspondent on Sunday.

Allies want the party to settle its issues with annoyed activists

The senior unhappy workers, he said, had no personal agenda, but they wanted implementation of the party’s manifesto in real sense and revival of the democratic culture. Asked about the party position, he said PPP had roots in masses, but its votes were divided and if the leadership did not take serious steps for removal of the differences the party would face crushing defeat in the coming elections.

He said that the ‘ideological’ workers had decided not to support candidates of the tripartite alliance and they would announce parallel office-bearers in all the districts besides fielding own candidates in future elections.

“Former MNA Engineer Tariq Khattak, convener of the ideological workers, has clearly announced that the efforts for acceptance of these demands will continue,” he said.

However, a former provincial president and member of the tripartite alliance, Rahim Dad Khan, rejected the demand of the annoyed activists and said that a few ‘self-interested’ people could not cause a dent to the party. “Party is party and group is group, which can’t pressure the leadership,” he said and added that one should not harm the party for personal gains.

Referring to some of the people, he said that they were basically businessmen who always sought personal interests. He said that most of the unhappy people had never done practical politics to judge the actual position of party’s vote bank. Referring to the vote bank of ANP, JUI-F and PPP, he said that their tripartite alliance would give a crushing defeat to the alliance, including PTI.

ANP central finance secretary Arbab Tahir said that the PPP leadership should convince its unhappy people so that candidates of the three-party alliance could win the election. Asked about the possible impact of the independent candidates of PPP, he said that it was duty of every party to maintain unity in its ranks and convince its people to follow the discipline.

Mr Tahir said that the distribution of seats in the elections should be on the basis of past elections and vote bank of each party and efforts would be made to take decisions in mutual consultations because joint committees of the three parties had been working at every level to sort out issues.

When contacted, JUI-F provincial secretary information Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan said that his party was the largest in the alliance and it had the right to get maximum number of seats in the LG elections.

“For instance, we had obtained a total of 68,666 votes in all the 11 constituencies of Peshawar, while ANP could grab 66,000 and PPP 64,000 that mean JUI-F is the major party in the provincial metropolis,” he argued. He said that JUI-F was facing no internal issue and PPP should try to swiftly resolve its internal differences.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2015

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