Who will lead PPP’s Election Campaign!

By Saeed Qureshi

It is mind boggling that while all other political parties in Pakistan are gearing up for the general elections scheduled on May 11, the PPP seems to be hamstrung in launching the election campaign under a front line leader. 

The visible sang is due to Mr. Zardari’s wearing of two crowns: one that of the head of the state and the other of the party. Now as president he can run his office from the well guarded presidency, yet in public meetings he cannot have similar foolproof guarantees.

We have seen in the recent days that the chairman of the Pakistan Insaf Party Imran Khan kicking around and vigorously flaunting his party’s revolutionary manifesto. The PTI managed to gather a huge crowd at Minar-e-Pakistan on March 23 that nearly corroborated Imran Khan’s claim of filling that historic spacious ground. 

Close on the heels, PMNL President Nawaz Sharif addressed a mammoth public assemblage in Mansehra that betokens his popularity and well being in the Hazara region. The MQM is too flexing its wings in its areas of influence which are Karachi and part of Hyderabad.

A week or ago, a group of PPP (P) parliamentarians with vice president of the party Amin Fahim as the chief, unfurled an election charter bedecked with a pack of  reforms aimed at changing the destiny of the nation. 

Besides pronouncing its manifesto merely, the party’s top brass and high profile leaders have to jump in the election fray and fight out their claim as a popular party. That can be done through corner meetings, supplemented with big public congregations.

Now when it would be utterly difficult for Mr. Zardari as the chairman of the party, to come out in the public and fire up and galvanize the supporters specifically and the people in general to vote for the PPP, who can play such a vital and most urgent role. If Bilawal Bhutto can fill that vacuum: well and good. 

But despite Bilawel’s being the real Chairman of the party, he is constrained by his age, meager experience in politics and dangling danger to his life as well if he comes open in the public. Presently Bilawal Bhutto has left Pakistan all of a sudden for inexplicable reasons.

So the million dollar question still remains unanswered that how this party is going to propel and advance its future plans and programs effectively and comprehensively all over Pakistan?

While its leaders will have to bend heavily backward to project their future agenda, also they will have to labor very hard to erase or diminish their badly bruised image for being neck deep in sleazy scams and foul money making scandals. 

Moreover, the stigma of bad governance looks  hanging like millstone around the neck of the PPP and it has to be dispensed with as soon as possible.

But as the stars on the political horizon portend, the PPP may not take the lead in the elections. It could at best emerge as a runner-up. There are many praiseworthy achievements by the outgoing PPP government. 

But those achievements were more in the nature of constitutional amendments and sheltering the edifice of the democracy for five years. These achievements did not have any redeeming bearing on the lives of the people of Pakistan.

Pakistan has remained burdened by an unremitting cycle of violence of all kinds including the sectarian feuds and religious extremism in which hundreds of Pakistanis have been killed and injured. The cost of living sky rocketed, the poverty proliferated, and the basic needs of the people went beyond their reach to be adequately met. 

The national institutions were degraded, the unemployment soared, social vices from adulteration to rape swelled. The law enforcement for the security of the people plummeted to the lowest depths.

In contrast, the shenanigans of the ruling parties broke the previous records on corrupt practices, excelled in nepotism and doling out undue privileges to themselves and to their kith and kin. They proved to be high way robbers in depleting the national exchequer in every conceivable manner.

While a nation is desperately trying to survive against most trying conditions, the interim prime minister, in his last few days as the chief executive of the country, decamped with 37 billion rupees given to him as special discretionary funds. He made thousands of appointments that in due course would put inexorable burden on the state treasury.

Regrettably this prime minister was already booked in highly serious financial crimes one of which is fleecing the national exchequer through fake rental power units. The outgoing government locked itself in a continuous battle with the judiciary by not complying with the judicial verdicts.

It couldn't lay bare or at least actively pursue the most brazen murder of its chairperson Benazir Bhutto in five years. Why only one page of the 35 pages of the Benazir Bhutto’s will is shown. Why the whole will is not revealed because that document belongs to nation? 

Interestingly that one page shows only the appointment of Asif Ali Zardari as the next chairman of the PPP. Doesn't that smell fishy on the face?

So Pakistan needs terrible shake-up to cast away the lethal parasites, the deadly bugs and blood sucking leeches from its body politic. Pakistan is in dire need of an iron willed leader or bunch of leaders who can transform this marvelous land into resplendent one with prosperity and the enticing look of a modern state. 

He should stamp out the scourge of sectarianism, the ravenous religious militancy caving in the foundations of Pakistan. He should at least be clean handed, free from greed, and of high moral character. He should be dedicated to the service of the people and not himself or his clan or party.

Such leader should not exploit or abuse their powers for personal enrichment and aggrandizement. Pakistan needs peace domestically and the establishment of a system of governance that ensures equal and fair justice to all, provision of basic needs and utilities, clean environment and elimination of poverty be it economic, intellectual or social. 

To sum up it should be model good governance so that country can move forward and people have a break from a decadent, stinking and nerve shattering paradigm of living.