Final nail?

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari tears apart the show-cause notice issued to his party by the PDM

Here goes the last nail in the PDM’s coffin. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has torn apart the show-cause notice issued to his party by the PDM – in an act that appears to replicate how his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had, as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, torn and thrown away a copy of the Russia-backed Polish resolution in the Security Council during the 1971 war and walked out of the venue in rage. The video, often played on TV, depicts ZA Bhutto as a tough man – a trait having a popular appeal in politics.

Bilawal’s re-enactment was followed a day later, on Monday, by the PPP’s Central Executive Committee formally rejecting the show-cause notice – seeking explanation on why the party secured votes from BAP, a ruling coalition member, to clinch the position of opposition leader in Senate – and directing all its office-bearers in the opposition alliance “to submit their resignations … in protest of the attitude, conduct and actions of other office-bearers of the PDM”. The ANP has already quit the PDM alleging that it has been “hijacked” by some of its members for their own interests.

Frankly speaking, the PDM show-cause notice provided the PPP with the opportunity it must be waiting for. It was naïve of the PDM to be expecting the PPP – the ruling party in Sindh – to agree to resign from the assemblies, specially when there were all the signs of the party having found space among the good books of those who matter. Apart from the resignation issue, the PPP was never comfortable with the idea of a long march too, insisting instead on cornering the ruling PTI in parliament.

It has been the PPP’s divergent position on a strategy to send the government packing that compelled the PDM leadership to blow hot and cold on major decisions, thereby appearing as a confused lot. Are we going to see another PDM member or two joining ranks with the PPP – like the ANP did – given the political convenience available there?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 14^th, 2021.

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