Internal differences: PPP factions celebrate foundation day

Naheed Khan group urges Bilawal to distance himself from Zardari.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and a breakaway PPP faction led by Naheed Khan staged separate celebrations of the party’s 46th foundation day here on Saturday, with the former praising ex-president Asif Ali Zardari and the later accusing him of damaging the PPP brand.

The PPP held a function at Aiwan-i-Iqbal, attended by PPP Punjab President Mian Manzoor Wattoo, PPP Lahore President Samina Khalid Ghurki, Naveed Chaudhry and Raja Riaz. Wattoo, Ghurki and Chaudhry made speeches praising Zardari’s services as well as recounting the party’s achievements since it was founded by the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Some participants in the PPP function were critical of the arrangements, for which they blamed Wattoo. The few dozens workers in attendance also got into a quarrel and disrupted the event.

Meanwhile, some 500 disgruntled PPP workers gathered at a marriage hall near the Aiwan-i-Iqbal for the event organised by the PPP Naheed Khan Group. The group’s leaders include Khan’s husband Safdar Abbasi and new entrant Sajida Mir, a former MPA.

Speaking at the event, Mir accused Zardari of nepotism and cronyism, saying he tended to oblige his friends while ignoring party loyalists. She said that the PPP under Zardari had no real street power.

She said that General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf had both tried and failed to remove the PPP from Pakistan’s political landscape, but Zardari had succeeded where both dictators had failed. She said that the PPP had been wiped off Punjab’s political map because of Zardari’s policies. The party was also losing ground in other parts of the country, she added.

Mir urged PPP Co-Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to restore the party’s image. She said that the best way to do this was for Bilawal to distance himself from his father.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2013.