THE PPP refuses to shift focus. It is still insistent on its search for the electables, so called because we know that a constituency has more than one of them. It is critical that you have the right electable at the right time. The right electable will go to the right party. The PPP is not the right party for vast areas of Pakistan.

The thought doesn’t deter Mr Asif Zardari. The party supremo has in recent days been seen touching the knees of a Sirdar from Dera Ghazi Khan. He has used some of his precious time inducting a few unknown names and perhaps a smattering of notables in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Maybe these recent expeditions have landed the party some important catches in that province. Maybe not. There is little in terms of evidence as yet to confirm that the party’s overall image in public has been enhanced by these inclusions.

It’s a tall order. The image turnaround will require much more than an occasional win here and there, even if we grant the PPP’s effort in KP has been much more spirited than its revival work — more talk than action — in Punjab.

In the meanwhile, there have been a few important additions to the emerging anti-PPP front in Sindh. And not to forget, the party’s camp in Punjab has suffered more in the wake of the exodus of some prominent members. The impact of these desertions is relatively easier to gauge, what with an extremely vital Nadeem Afzal Chann stepping down from his post as secretary of the party’s Punjab chapter. Chann had risen in what has been described as a prolonged, painful twilight period for his party. He had risen to resign in the wake of his brother’s defection to the long-anticipating PTI.

Bilawal has chosen to be an extension of his father rather than a solution to him.

The matter-of-fact explanation offered by Chann’s close relative and former PPP minister Nazar Gondal on the occasion best captures the dilemma those who are still in the PPP but are welcome in the PTI are faced with. Mr Gondal was quoted as saying it is up to Chann to join or to not join the family’s switchover to Imran Khan. But, and this is a big but, it was clear to the erstwhile Zardari lieutenant that those who were failing to move to the right party at the right time stood no chance in the next election.

This is the reality politicians Nadeem Afzal Chann and a few others are up against with all its repercussions for all times to come. Here is a politician with his reputation by and large intact, bar his reluctance so far to split from the PPP. What are the odds? He was beaten in the 2013 election. Now with proof of the large-scale PPP drubbing in that very general election, do Chann’s chances of winning the contest improve or is he likely to lose support should he choose to valiantly cling on to the party — that too in the name of an ideology no one is sure about?

There is considerable truth to the theory that is centred round the PPP’s performance in the NA-120 by-poll a month and a half ago. It provided pointers to the popularity of parties and gave a general breakdown of politics in the country. The PPP had attached some hopes of a revival to that contest, sympathetic commentators saying that if the party could secure double the number of the 2,500 votes it had in the constituency in 2013 it could well be on its way to some kind of resurgence in Punjab. The number of votes fell by more than 1,000.

In 2013, the voters did not have an exact idea of how low the Zardari party stood in the popular perception. In 2017, for sure the knowledge of the overall PPP showing in 2013 must have played a part in shaping people’s preferences. The consequent decline was sharp even if it was argued that a Lahore so tantalisingly divided between the PTI and PML-N was not quite the venue to base calculations about any third party.

Lahore did send panic waves through PPP ranks. The failure was certain to trigger a wave from the PPP to the all-embracing PTI. The remarkable part is that there have been fewer declarations of defection than expected. Maybe this is because not too many people have been left in the Zardari-Bilawal camp.

The growing scarcity of human resource in the camp vindicates the absence of the right strategy. The right path eludes despite the enhanced and propped-up profile of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. It is not certain if his innocent pleas that might remind some of the sentimental middle-aged Pakistanis of his brave mother are having too much of the desired impact. This could be to a large extent because Mr Bilawal has chosen to be an extension of his father rather than a solution to him.

Mr Bilawal is trying. He is trying to drum up emotion — unfortunately at a time when one crucial question being asked is: how long can we be exploited in the name of our fallen heroes? But those who appear on public forums on the PPP’s behalf are easily silenced and ridiculed by calls of ‘cheats’ and ‘corrupt’.

No number of clarifications and court acquittals appear to offer an effective answer to the corruption tag that has been pasted on the PPP, as if permanently, as if it is a habit that the PPP cannot even try to give up. So sure are the accusers that now they don’t need specific details to pin a case on the party. That is a given in the case of the jiyalas. Perhaps it is time for the party to respond to each and every case in minute detail in the national media. The party could surely spend some of the time it dedicates to its search for electables on this exercise in the people’s jury.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2017