PPP willing to offer PM slot to Imran: Wattoo

PPP’s Central Punjab chapter president says his party could make a coalition govt with PML-N in Punjab.

OKARA: While Imran Khan is drawing huge crowds on his campaign trail, a senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) predicts that his party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could form the next coalition government at the centre. He also foresees the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz as coalition partners in Punjab.

“The PPP could also offer Imran Khan the office of prime minister in the coalition government,” Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, the president of PPP’s central Punjab chapter, told The Express Tribune in a candid interview on Sunday in Okara where he was on a campaign trail. Wattoo is contesting the May 11 elections from three constituencies: NA-147, NA-148 and PP-188.

“If Imran Khan plays his cards carefully, his party can bag more seats than PML-N in the centre,” he said. Manzoor Wattoo, whose party successfully completed its five-year constitutional term in office, predicted a ‘hung Parliament’ as a result of the upcoming election. He believes no political party could win a simple majority, either in the centre or in the provinces.



“If the PPP outvotes its rivals [in the centre], we’ll  invite the PTI to form a coalition government,” he added. “If the PPP can join hands with the ANP, JUI-F and MQM, it can also form a coalition with Imran Khan,” he said referring to the last coalition government that his party led for five years. He added that President Asif Ali Zardari believed in political reconciliation.

Asked about PPP’s strategy for Punjab, Wattoo said even if his party retained the seats it had won in the 2008 elections, it would be better placed to form a coalition government in the province. “We can join hands with PML-N if the party wins enough seats in Punjab,” he added.

Wattoo claimed that after the 2008 elections, too, the PPP could easily form a coalition government with the help of 40 independent legislators in Punjab. But President Zardari invited the PML-N to form the government because he wanted to give the Sharif brothers a chance to revive their party in the province.

However, he was noncommittal when asked if his party would offer the chief minister slot to the PML-N in a coalition government. “I’m also contesting for a provincial assembly seat [PP-188]. And this is not without a reason,” he said, dropping a broad hint that he could be the party’s choice for the office, if voted to power in the province. Wattoo served as the chief minister of Punjab three times between 1993 and 1996, though he couldn’t complete his term on all three occasions.

Asked why the PPP was not considering the PTI for a coalition government in Punjab, Wattoo said that Imran’s party was focusing more on winning National Assembly seats.

Wattoo is upbeat about the electoral victory of his party – and he has reasons for this optimism. “Whenever three popular parties are in the race, the PPP gets the benefit,” he said, adding that PPP’s ideological voters would never vote for any other party.

Criticizing Nawaz Sharif for his ‘obduracy’  and ‘political intolerance’, Wattoo said that in politics one has to be flexible and accommodating. “PPP’s successful election strategy has put the PML-N on the back foot. This is why today the entire Sharif family is out in the field, campaigning for their candidates,” he said.

While its rivals – especially the PML-N and PTI – are staging huge public rallies across the country, the PPP is relying on the media for its election campaign. But Wattoo defended his party’s strategy, saying that they were focusing on technology for conveying their message to voters.

“We are relying on the media, including social media, because it’s a fast, quick and efficient way to communication. Even in the United States, the media is used for election campaigns,” he said. He added that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would soon address public meetings via video link.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2013.