A whiter shade of pale

The political foreshore is littered with the hulks of parties that for whatever reason were no longer fit for purpose, or had lost direction and relevance eventually to beach themselves to avoid a sinking. It is premature to place the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in that scenario, but it is not inconceivable that a desolate stranding is where it is headed. The PPP is about to enter its 50^th year and it is far from being in the best of health. On Wednesday 30^th November it began a week of rallies in Lahore to celebrate foundation day. Lahore is the birthplace of the party and once a stronghold, but times have changed as have fortunes.



The leadership of the party is one of the many problems. It is ‘co-Chaired’ by the widower of Benazir Bhutto who leads an absentee life abroad, and his son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari who is the maternal grandson of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — a model built for tension and conflict if ever there was one. The younger Bhutto has of late been pushed forwards politically to very mixed reviews and his inheritance is not a mantle he wears easily. There are (denied) reports of rifts with his father and other reports that Zardari pere is considering a return to his natal shores.

The week of celebrations is being held within the confines of the boundary walls of Bilawal house rather than at street level, and is said to encompass root and branch party reorganisation at divisional and district levels. The party took a drubbing at the last general election and is no longer the power in the land that it used to be. Whether it can stave off the drift backwards will depend on whether the promised review re-energises a once-great party.

Challenging the dominance of the PML-N in Punjab is no longer a winnable fight, but fortunes in Sindh may take a turn for the better if the current woeful performance can be turned round. Elsewhere a dead horse is being flogged. The PPP has turned a whiter shade of pale, a lonely beach on the horizon.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2016.

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