Zardari appears to be in the driving seat

PPP throws weight behind co-chairman to resolve issues in CEC meeting

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Peoples Party has thrown its weight behind Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, leaving little doubt about whose opinion prevailed within the party, two PPP leaders familiar with the outcome of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting revealed.

Talking to The Express Tribune, they said that former president Zardari whose position regarding economy first and elections later, was dubbed as his personal opinion by his own son, party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on Thursday was officially mandated by the same CEC to address the issues regarding the level-playing field, which meant mending ties with the powers that be.

One of the leaders said that this was not a veto against the chairman in any way, but this was a way of the party telling its leaders that aggressive posturing at this stage was not getting them anywhere and giving a somewhat of a walkover to the PML-N, adding that the party still stood by its demand for early elections.

The leader said that it wasn’t any planned activity to empower Zardari, or atleast this was what their understanding was.

Read PPP to 'merge' Zardari, Bilawal’s opposing stances

He said that after both the leaders from Punjab and Sindh had laid forth a slew of issues they were facing at the hands of local administration and the caretaker government, Zardari asked them if they had any solution to it.

This question was met with dead silence and this was when Zardari said: “If you give me this task, I will address the issues.”

This was when party unanimously agreed to allow him to resolve the issues confronting the party.

He said that this was why Bilawal was not the usual himself and abstained from taking the hardline on the issue of elections.

He said that the party, however, would not back down from its demand for elections, as it was the shared understanding that the establishment did not want to hold elections in the near future.

He said, “Zardari Sab must have a plan … he always has a plan.”

Another senior leader, who had attended the CEC meeting, joked that this should be a matter of concern for Bilawal that those tailing him around all day long abandoned him during the CEC meeting.

He, however, clarified that both Bilawal and Zardari were the party’s head and any one of them taking the lead did not mean the other was being undermined. When asked about Qamar Zaman Kaira fighting a case of the PML-N, he said indeed Kaira had at one point said that the party should not use harsh language against the PML-N as they had worked as allies in the government. Kaira was then as to when any member of the party had used harsh language against the PML-N.

He said it seemed that Kaira wanted PML-N’s support for his MNA seat.

Read Zardari vetoes PPP’s demand of holding polls within 90 days

He too clarified that it was not Zardari who had asked to give him the authority rather the other way round. He said that the party hoped that the court would give a decision regarding elections, and whatever the decision might be, the party would respect it.

He again clarified that CEC meeting was held on Thursday, and the Friday’s meeting was just a meeting.

When PPP leader Nayyar Bukhari was approached, he said that he would not divulge details of the discussion during the CEC meeting.