Bilawal’s PPP, finally?

It is time for the PPP to stop using the names of ZAB and BB in its current election campaign

It would be an exaggeration to say that the two former prime ministers of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto – the first a victim of ‘judicial murder’ and the second a casualty of terror attack mounted in broad daylight – have already attained the attributes of undisputed national heroes.

Yes, of course the majority of Pakistanis have not yet placed ZAB and BB on the pedestal of national icons deserving the respect and the deference a nation accords to those that put down their lives serving the country and the flag.

Still, it is highly refreshing to observe that even those who had vehemently disagreed with the politics of ZAB and BB in their respective lifetimes bending backwards trying to refrain from making use of the real or imagined sins of commissions and omissions of the two to criticise the PPP and its leaders including Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

It is, therefore, time for the PPP to stop using the names of ZAB and BB in its current election campaign as by repeatedly using their names in a bitterly contested election, the PPP seems virtually to be tempting its opponents to answer back making controversial the names which in the nation’s memory have already become more or less non-controversial.

Of course, it is a very tall demand almost bordering on asking the Party to ignore its past. Indeed, asking the PPP to forget its founder as well as the architect of its revival after it had been completely decimated by General Zia is like asking it to forget its origins and ignore its ‘glorious’ past.

But then one is not asking the PPP to forget its origins or ignore its ‘glorious’ past. What is being asked is to be sensible enough to see the political advantage in building on the Bilawal wave that is being currently witnessed at least in Sindh without invoking the names of these two political giants, ZAB and BB. Such a move would give Bilawal the needed confidence in his own personal ability to lead the Party at the national level.

Here one needs to remember that BB did not inherit the Party that ZAB had founded. It had been completely destroyed by General Zia and his cronies by the time BB came of age and took over the chairperson’s office from Begum Bhutto who despite the destruction of the Party at the hands of Zia had succeeded in keeping its vote bank intact.

ZAB had founded a left-of-centre party which was more left than centre. BB on the other hand when she died had left a party which was more centre than left. And the Party that Bilawal is leading today is not the one that BB had revived. His PPP is an all centre – no-left Party, thanks to father AAZ.

It is no use recalling here the various political turns and twists the Party underwent following the assassination of BB in 2007.

Led by AAZ, the Party did win the 2008 general elections and succeeded in ousting General Musharraf from the Presidency. Next, AAZ got himself elected to the august office, willingly got transferred all the supra-constitutional powers of the president to the office of the elected Prime Minister and also oversaw the passage of the18^th amendment restoring the 1973 constitution in its original form, almost.

But by the time it was time for 2013 general elections, the PPP which in the meanwhile had turned seemingly into a totally centrist party that is if you can call it so because one felt the Party that contested the last general elections was an ideologically rudderless political entity, to say the least.

This is the Party that Bilawal seems to have inherited. It is up to him to reshape the Party and reimagine its ideological template so as to be prepared to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is currently sweeping not only the advanced world but also our immediate neighbourhood – China and India. But then he can take the easy way out as Imran Khan has done. The PTI chief now believes that it is the electables and money that win elections, not ideologies.