Bilawal, Zardari win intra-party election

Father and son to head political PPP and parliamentary PPPP, respectively

KARACHI: Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Asif Ali Zardari emerged as chairpersons of their respective factions of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and PPP Parliamentarians (PPPP), respectively.

The two-day-long intra-party elections, held under convener Fouzia Habib at the party headquarters here, culminated in the election of former chairman Senate Nayyar Bukhari as secretary-general, Haider Zaman Qureshi as finance secretary and Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed as information secretary.

According to the party’s spokesperson, the party’s office-bearers reposed their trust and elected Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as chairman PPP. All office-bearers were elected for a period of 4 years.

PPPP, which is parliamentary party in the National parliament, elected Asif Ali Zardari as its president, Farhatullah Babar as secretary-general, Saleem Mandviwalla as finance secretary and Maula Bux Chandio as information secretary.

These elections were held under convener Farooq H. Naek. Other members of the electoral body were Taj Haider and Sardar Ali Khan.

Party sources said that recent developments had compelled the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to direct all political parties to hold intra-party polls.

The ECP recently declared that parties failing to hold intra-party elections would be barred from taking part in upcoming polls.

“Since Bilawal and Zardari will contest the by-elections, they held intra-party polls to avoid any complication,” a PPP leader said, adding that both would contest polls under the same election symbol ‘arrow’ following an understanding between both factions of the party.

Referring to the by-elections, the sources said that no MNA had yet tendered resignation to pave the way for Bilawal and Zardari to contest elections on Larkana and Nawabshah seats.

According to a party decision, PPP MNA Ayaz Soomro was to resign from NA-204 (Larkana) for Bilawal and Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Asif Zardari’s sister, would resign from NA-213 (Nawabshah) in favour of Asif Ali Zardari.

Meanwhile, PPPP’s newly-elected information secretary Maula Bux Chandio said that the process had started and both lawmakers had submitted their resignations to the party leaders, which would subsequently be sent to the National Assembly secretariat.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2017.