PESHAWAR: The future of tripartite alliance of Awami National Party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Pakistan Peoples Party seems to be bleak as PPP is likely to part ways with it due to immense pressure from its workers.

Sources in the PPP said on Wednesday that the ‘ideological’ workers were already against the alliance and now some senior leaders, including Syed Zahir Ali Shah, were also openly opposing it.

They said that the party’s provincial general secretary Engineer Mohammad Humayun Khan, senior vice-president Najmuddin Khan and former provincial president Rahim Dad Khan were in favour of the alliance and they were of the view that the party was not in position to fly solely in the prevailing situation.

The recent statement of the provincial president Khan Zada Khan against ANP further deepened the crisis as he had also held the ANP responsible for the PPP’s defeat in the recent local government elections.

The party leaders believe that PPP is in crisis at the national level and it needs cooperation from rest of the parties and in such a situation issuing irresponsible statements could harm the party. Efforts were made to get version of Khan Zada Khan, but he could not be approached on phone.

PPP president’s statement against ANP has deepened the crisis

Some other PPP leaders, including former KP governor Masood Kausar, former KP Assembly speaker Abdul Akbar Khan, former MNA Tariq Khattak, Peshawar-based leaders Syed Ayub Shah, Zulfiqar Afghani, Khwaja Yawar Naseer, Tahir Abbas and Saeed Ahmed Khan are already opposed to the alliance. A senior leader said that PPP’s alliance with ANP was restricted to documents only, but its future depended on response from the party’s co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari.

However, Rahim Dad said that statements must be issued with responsibility to avoid creating problems for the party. “Before issuing the statement Khan Zada Khan was bound to consult with other party leaders,” he said and added that the existing alliance was formed on the basis of ground realities.

When contacted, the tripartite alliance president and ANP’s central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that he did not know why Khan Zada Khan had issued a statement against ANP. “We are in the alliance and in case of any complaint the matters should be discussed in the meetings instead of making them public,” he said.

The ANP leader said that his party was fully following the discipline of the alliance and would try to maintain it till last. He said that Zahir Ali Shah had talked against the alliance, but leader of the rest of allied parties did not take any notice because the provincial leadership had timely clarified the issue, but now the provincial president himself did so. The alliance, he said, was based on principles otherwise it had no constitution to hold anyone responsible.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl provincial secretary information Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan said that the allied parties would meet after Eidul Fitr to discuss the situation. He said that PPP leaders should avoid giving such statements because the alliance was made for securing the interests of all the three member parties. He said that the party leaders had the right to express their views in the alliance meetings.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

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