Zardari doesn’t want to 'oust PML-N govt'

Backdoor contacts dissuaded PPP from launching anti-govt movement

KARACHI: Asif Zardari has sprung a surprise that wasn’t. Party workers were disillusioned when he contrary to their expectations announced that he and his son, Bilawal Bhutto, would contest by-elections for the incumbent parliament.

Interestingly, Bilawal had set the Dec 27 deadline for the government to grant his four demands or else he would unleash street agitation. And political pundits and PPP workers believed Garhi Khuda Bux would be the launch-pad for this anti-government movement.



But Zardari’s announcement shows he doesn’t want to rock the boat and tip it over. “Zardari would have never decided to contest by-elections, if he had any plans to oust the PML-N government,” a PPP veteran told The Express Tribune.

He revealed that backdoor contacts between the two parties played a key role in dissuading the PPP from mounting street agitation to challenge the government. “Even today [Tuesday], a senior politician phoned Zardari to convey a government message,” a source added.

The PPP veteran said that with the election of Zardari and Bilawal, the opposition would get a boost in parliament. “The influence of PTI Chairman Imran Khan will wean away, and the government will comfortably complete its five-year tenure,” he added.

Though Bilawal asked party workers to prepare for a ‘long march’, but he didn’t go into the specifics. “The movement will be started in parliament, in courts and in bars but not on the streets,” he said, creating ambiguities about the march.



Sources say the PPP has grievances over the protracted security operation in Sindh, particularly in Karachi, where its leaders have been rounded up on allegations of corruption and terror financing. The party believes Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar is behind all this – and this is why it has been pressuring the government to sack him.

“The PPP’s first demand is to release the pressure on its leaders,” a source told The Express Tribune. “How can the PPP, the ruling party in Sindh, afford to stage a long march? Zardari, who still believes in political reconciliation, wants to engage Premier Sharif in dialogue on various issues.”

Earlier this week, Zardari met PML-Q leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to explore the possibility of cobbling together a ‘grand alliance’ of opposition parties. Sources, however, say it was ruse to pile pressure on the government because the PPP has no plan to send the government packing.

PPP’s senior leader Qamar Zaman Kaira insists his party would be after the government. “We have announced a movement but a democratic one,” he said. But he couldn’t say when the promised long march would begin.



Interestingly, before Tuesday’s jalsa almost all PPP leaders talked about getting rid of the Sharif government for its refusal to give in to their party’s four demands.

Sources say PPP’s Khursheed Shah and PML-N’s Ishaq Dar will meet soon to initiate dialogue on contentious issues. “We have no hidden agenda. We want our fours demands met,” said Shah.

“No one [from government side] has yet approached me for dialogue,” Shah said. “We believe in dialogue. If the government approaches us, then we will be willing for talks,” he told The Express Tribune. He also insisted that the PPP’s “movement against the government has been started from today and it will continue in different phases”.

Bilawal’s four demands are: Reconfiguration of a parliamentary committee on national security; passage of the Panama Bill drafted by the PPP; implementation of the resolution on CPEC; and appointment of a foreign minister.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2016.