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Zardari has hijacked Pakistan Peoples Party
His years in politics have not won him many admirers because of his strong likes and dislikes.
- By Kuldip Nayar, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:08 January 4, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Dwynn Ronald V. Trazo//Gulf News
Politics in Pakistan is getting curiouser and curiouser. I am not dwelling on the dynastic succession which is becoming common in India, not at the Centre but also in the states. I am referring to Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari taking charge of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) until his 19-year-old son, Bilawal, named as the successor, returns from London after his studies.
Even otherwise, he cannot contest election until he is 25. Zardari has, no doubt, been in jail for many years, a qualification for leadership in the subcontinent. But he was jailed for different reasons. He was involved in corruption cases. He reportedly admitted owning a £4.35-million estate in Surrey, England. He was known as Mr 10 per cent, extracting money from industrialists and businessmen. His list of acts of omission and commission is long. How is a person like him qualified to become even the officiating head of the leading party in Pakistan?
The ethos of the PPP is roti, kapada aur makan (food, clothing and housing) a slogan which the party's founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, coined to give the party a leftist image. I have not heard anything progressive attributed to Zardari. He is one of the biggest landlords in Sindh. Feudal tendencies do not debarr a person from pretending to be a "man of the poor."
Zardari claims to be one. He has seldom mixed with the rank and file of the party and came to be a front leader only because he was the husband of Bhutto. His years in politics have not won him many admirers because of his strong likes and dislikes. The manner in which he conducted the press conference, the first after her assassination, indicated as if he was the party. Bhutto reportedly nominated him as her successor in the will she has left behind. If she did, this could be yet another misjudgment of her life.
Never asked
Strange, Zardari should refuse to show anyone the will which is hand-written.
Makhdoom Ameen Fahim, the party's co-chairman, was also at the press conference. But he sat impassively and was never asked to say a word.
It was quite odd when Zardari said in reply to a question that Fahim or "someone like him" would be the PPP's nominee for prime ministership. It sounded like an off-the-cuff remark. Was this the decision reached at the PPP executive meeting at Larkana? Zardari said that Ghinwa, the wife of deceased Murtaza Bhutto, brother of Benazir, was consulted. But she issued a statement to point out that the leader was chosen by the people, not nominated. Even if she had said yes, it did not mean that a Zardari sibling, rechristened as Bhutto, had to head the PPP. The issue was the party, not property.
True, the word Bhutto has an advantage. But the party was choosing a leader, not anointing a king. The entire thinking is feudal. The PPP should have convened a meeting of its leaders from all over the country to elect the chief. A person like Aitzaz Ahsan should have been kept in the picture. He led Pakistan's first successful agitation of lawyers to have Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry reinstated. Aitzaz is still under house arrest.
Zardari has not even demanded Aitzaz's release or, for that matter, other political detainees. They are the backbone of the PPP. They were the party stalwarts when Zardari was nowhere near the PPP. They have given their lives. How can they be ignored? Zardari has hijacked the party.
Open secret
Nawaz Sharif has also withdrawn his call to boycott the polls. Yet it is an open secret that elections would be rigged.
Zardari is banking not only on the sympathy factor but also Musharraf's "blessings". Still the sympathy factor will count. Yet, Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League has deep roots. It may hold its own, particularly in Punjab. Moreover, Sharif has grown taller than before because he has kept distance from Musharraf and the military. His stance that the judges sacked by Musharraf should be reinstated will elicit popular support.
The PPP is silent on this subject. Even Bhutto was equivocal, much to the embarrassment of her supporters, among whom are lawyers.
Zardari says that they have nothing against the army, but the rulers. Who are they except those in khaki? The tragedy is that both America and Britain want to give a semblance of democratic legitimacy to Musharraf and that is the reason why they persuaded Bhutto to return to Pakistan despite her warning that she would be killed on her return.
Meanwhile, I want to say that I have never found such a groundswell of support for Pakistan before as I did after the assassination of Bhutto. It was as if every Indian wanted to reach out to the Pakistanis in their hour of crisis to assure them that the people of India understood their grief and wanted to do whatever they could to share their sorrow.
They really meant it when they said the stability of Pakistan was necessary for the stability of India. Bhutto talked about the "borderless subcontinent" before returning to Pakistan. But she was snuffed out before she could pursue it.
Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.
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