PHOTO: SABAH/FILE
ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari who also heads Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarian (PPP-P), the parliamentary wing of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), would be contesting elections for the National Assembly after 25 years.
Zardari will contest from Benazirabad (Nawabshah), while PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will make his debut in parliamentary politics by contesting from multiple constituencies in the July 25th general elections, according to PPP sources.
PPP’s central election board is in process of deciding tickets to the candidates.
Won’t even go to paradise with Nawaz, says Zardari
Before he assumed the office of President in September 2008, Zardari had twice been elected to National Assembly and once as Senator. Before marrying former PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto in 1987, he contested the 1985 non-party elections, but lost. Zardari later became an MNA in the 1990 elections for the first time with Benazir serving as leader of the opposition as Nawaz Sharif secured premiership.
The former president was again elected to National Assembly in 1993 and served as minister for investment in Benazir’s cabinet. After this assembly was dissolved in 1997, he was elected to the Upper House.
The PPP is now eying around 60 National Assembly seats in the general elections, with prime focus on Sindh.
Alliance with Imran Khan after elections on the cards: Asif Zardari
The party had 39 directly-elected MNAs from Sindh in the previous assembly and plans to consolidate its position by taking advantage of MQM’s fragmentation. The PPP’s target from Sindh is 45 seats including few from Karachi. On a broader landscape, the PPP has a target of around 10 seats from Punjab, five to seven from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and three from Balochistan.
If the party indeed comes close to its target of around 60 seats, with the addition of reserved seats, it will be in a strong position to negotiate with any of the two mainstream parties – the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz – for a coalition government.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ