Intensive care

With the Co-Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party due to arrive back in the country on the day this editorial appears we have to say that it is difficult to know what is going to be achieved by his re-appearance on the political stage. The PPP has never recovered from the comprehensive rejection it received in the last General Election, and the efforts of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, absent his father who was busy pulling the strings have been anodyne at best in terms of a PPP revival. As for Mr Zardari himself he returns to a country with preoccupations much other than when he last trod the stage here, and a political environment where he is something of a dodo — existing as a preserved example of an extinct species.



Notwithstanding all of the above which is self-evident to all but the most devoted of party loyalists, the local leadership of the PPP has submitted an application to the Commissioner Karachi saying that it will be holding a welcoming ceremony for Mr zardari on December 23^rd at the Karachi airport’s Old Terminal area, presumably at the cost of considerable disruption of traffic-flows to say nothing of the monetary cost of providing physical security to a man who has as many enemies as he has friends. One friend in the highest of places is the Prime Minister himself, who said on the morning of December 22^nd that he welcomed Mr Zardari’s return saying he will ‘…take care of the affairs of the PPP.”

With the anniversary of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27^th Mr Zardari has every right to both mourn and remember, and he will be joined by many others in spirit if not in terms of physical presence. His late wife remains an iconic figure, more so than he ever was or could be, and their son, Bilawal, is in reality a pale facsimile of the political facets of both his parents. The Bhutto dynasty is fading and today is in the political equivalent of intensive care. A rush to the bedside by Mr Zardari is unlikely to improve the prospects of a full recovery by the patient. We await developments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.