Post-Benazir leadership: Where there is a ‘will’, there is a way [forward]

PPP claims Zardari handing reins to Bilawal is in accordance to BB’s ‘political will’.

KARACHI:

The brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto left many of its leaders ‘orphaned’. With no BB, the party had no doyen, direction or raison d’être.

The only way forward was Benazir Bhutto’s “political will” – revealed three days after her death – that left her husband and former president Asif Ali Zardari in charge, but only briefly. “I would like my husband Asif Ali Zardari to lead you in this interim period until you and he decides what is best.”

Many close aides of Benazir Bhutto claim that the one-page handwritten “will” unveiled at Naudero House was just preliminary guidance that placed Asif Ali Zardari as the party’s political leader, but even after six years, he is not willing to surrender his power.

But does the will hold any relevance today? The Pakistan Peoples Party’s senior leadership does not think so. “The will has been honoured” as Zardari has relinquished all political powers to party which is now being led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “The political will has lost its meaning as the interim period is now over and the co-chairman has handed over all his powers to his son, Bilawal,” PPP secretary general Latif Khosa told The Express Tribune.



Makhdoom Amin Fahim had unveiled the ‘will’ before members of the Central Executive Committee, which then decided to elect Bilawal as chairperson and Asif Ali Zardari as co-chairman of the party. “Addressing the first CEC meeting, Zardari had announced that he would look after the party’s affairs until Bilawal completes his education,” said Khosa.

Interestingly, BB did not put down her son’s name in the will.   In her will, dated October 16, 2007, Benazir Bhutto addresses senior officials and members of her party, lauding her husband for his ‘sacrifices’. She wrote that he should lead for the time being “because he is a man of courage and honour. He spent 11½ years in prison without bending despite torture. He has the political stature to keep our party united.”

However, it is expected that Bilawal Bhutto is named the party chairman on her sixth death anniversary, which does fulfil the will in a way – former president Zardari oversaw the party for an extended interim period of six years and transferred the reins to Bilawal, which was what the “party and him decided best”.

After the ‘will’ was revealed, some senior stalwarts within the party had raised eyebrows. PPP senior leader and close aide of Benazir Bhutto Dr Safdar Abbasi differs from the ‘conventional wisdom’ the will has to offer.



“They cannot fool us. It is now an open secret that who runs the party affairs. I think the role of Bilawal Bhutto will be confined as the dummy leader of the party,” he told The Express Tribune. 

Enver Baig and Naheed Khan, both senior leaders of the party who have now defected, claimed that it was very unfortunate that the party has been running without a chairperson now. “The patron-in-chief is a ceremonial post. No office bearer has been elected so far,” said Naheed Khan.

Baig, who has now joined Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said he left the party because it had become a “one-man show”. “I had serious reservations about BB’s will, but accepted it to avoid disorder and division within the party.”

But Makhdoom Amin Fahim is sanguine. “Benazir Bhutto had always put roti, kapra, makan first. We provided 0.1 million jobs, started programmes for the youth and women and provided thousands of acres of land among the landless peasants,” he said.

Bilawal was underage which is why he surrendered the chairmanship, the senior leader explained. “Now that he has turned 25, he is eligible to contest elections and lead the party,” he said, concluding.


Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2013.