ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which once possessed a strong vote bank in Islamabad, is struggling in the first local government elections in the federal capital.
The PPP is relying almost entirely on independent candidates for the November 30 elections, a significant decline for a party which won the 2002 National Assembly seat from NA-49 and received around 44,000 votes in the last general election from this constituency.
The party has since struggled both in NA-48 and NA-49.
Party leaders say support for independents is strategic move to take advantage of baradari system
It has failed to field even a complete panel in the Malpur union council (UC), which was once known as ‘mini-Larkana’. The UC is the home of the former Senate chairperson Syed Nayyer Hussain Bukhari and his brother Sibtul Hussain Bukhari, president of the PPP’s Islamabad chapter. The rural outskirts of Islamabad were a stronghold of the party, where Mr Bukhari was elected in the 2002 general elections.
Mr Bukhari lost to PML-N candidate Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry in 2008, by a margin of just a few hundred votes. In 2013, party candidate Mustafa Nawaz Khokar received 44,984 votes against the winning PML-N candidate Dr Chaudhry’s 94,106 votes.
Now, the PPP stalwarts are supporting an independent panel contesting on the ‘two buckets’ election symbol from ‘mini-Larkana.’
“We were facing a shortage of potential candidates, which is why we are supporting independent candidates. During the last tenure, our government did not deliver, which is why the party’s vote bank has shrunk considerably,” a party leader said on condition of anonymity.
PPP has only fielded 81 candidates, mainly councillors, in all 50 UCs of Islamabad, compared to 506 from PML-N, 479 from PTI and 164 from JI.
The PPP leader said that of the 972 independent candidates, some were backed by the party, but this claim could not be independently verified.
The party district president Sibtul Hussain Bukhari said that the majority of party candidates were contesting as independents because this was the first time local government elections were being held on a party basis.
He said the local government elections revolved around the baradari system, and so the party has fielded dozens of independent panels to take advantage of this.
The baradari is an ethnically homogenous group, members of which may vote for a same party. Winning the votes of such a group, or baradari, could tip the scales in a party or candidate’s favour.
PPP leader Ibrar Rizvi also rejected the notion that the party’s vote bank has been greatly reduced. “The majority of our workers are participating in the elections as independents to get the votes of baradaris. It does not mean the candidates were not willing to get party tickets,” he said.
PPP city president Faisal Sakhi Butt claimed the party vote bank in Islamabad was intact, and PPP would gain a number of seats in the upcoming elections.
“Our 11 panels are participating under the party flag, and we are supporting independent candidates in the rest of the UCs,” he said.
When asked about the drastic decline of the PPP vote bank Mr Butt said: “In the 2013 elections, due to security threats, we could not run the election campaign properly, which is why the party received 9,000 votes,” he said.
The party has also allied itself with the ANP and Tahirul Qadri’s PAT.
PPP remained in the news for bad governance and corruption cases during its last tenure (2008-2013).
In NA-48, the party’s vote bank has been declining since 2002. PPP candidate Babar Awan won 28,775 votes in the 2002 elections, and in 2008 the vote bank remained mostly intact, with Israr Shah receiving 26,485 votes. However, in 2013, PPP candidate Faisal Sakhi Butt received just 9,000 votes, which then fell to 3,000 in the by-election held in the same year.
Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015
