Accountability or blame game?: ANP working committee blames former party MPAs for electoral defeat

Finds a lack of strategy in the run-up to polls, failure to assess ground realities.

PESHAWAR:

The Provincial Working Committee (PWC) members of the Awami National Party (ANP) did not hold back criticism while holding their leadership, former party lawmakers and ministers responsible for losing on May 11.

At least 250 party members and senior provincial and district leaders participated in the first PWC meeting after the ANP’s colossal electoral defeat. The meeting was held at a local hotel on Tuesday.

The PWC members held former ANP legislators responsible for the defeat on Election Day. Lawmakers, soon after assuming charge of their ministries, stopped coordinating with party workers and representatives at the Union Council level, alleged the PWC.

The working committee found former lawmakers had failed to efficiently campaign, and asked the central leadership to take action against the leaders responsible. However, ANP Provincial President Afrasiab Khattak, who also chaired the meeting, informed party members the fact-finding committee would prepare a report once the exact causes of the ANP’s defeat were delineated. Upon the completion of this report, stern action will be taken against all leaders found responsible.



The PWC members alleged the party leadership had failed to find ways to effectively campaign in the face of the deteriorating law and order situation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The committee members continued to point fingers as they said the ANP leaders also failed to assess ground realities in the run-up to elections, especially when compared to other parties.

The members of the meeting said the party should have entered into an alliance to present a stronger electoral front and achieving better results.

Khattak noted party activists should take logical steps in future instead of resorting to an emotional approach which lost the party its foothold in the province.

It was also decided that the ANP will take part in the by-elections with full spirit. This would be extended to local bodies election for which all steps will be taken, including reorganising the party at the district, and constituency levels.



Five teams have been formed for this purpose whose members will visit local ANP leadership across the province to trim and reorganise the party, informed Khattak. He said all members need to extend support and assistance to the fact-finding committee as the results will help avoid repeating past mistakes.

On May 26, ANP’s fact-finding committee was formed and on June 1, it started looking into the causes behind its electoral defeat. The final report will be submitted to the party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan on July 17.

“The election results came as a shock to the party – it was necessary to probe the issue,” said committee chairman Bashir Khan Matta at a press conference at the Bacha Khan Markaz on May 26.

“Our mandate was hijacked through a pre-planned strategy as we were not allowed to run our election campaign,” asserted Matta, referring to militant attacks on the party in the run-up to elections.

Syed Jafar Shah will go to Sindh and Balochistan, and Raiz Sheikh will collect information from the Punjab and Saraiki belt, explained Matta.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2013.