Resolving confusion: PPP, PPPP to merge ahead of next elections

Bilawal, Zardari to swap roles in party, with the former acting as legal head.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians (PPPP) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will be merged to revive the party’s old name. The PPP patron-in-chief, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has formed an eight-member committee to oversee the process.

An application may also be filed in the Pakistan Election Commission (ECP) to merge the two factions is also under consideration. Bilawal will be the chairman of the new setup while Asif Ali Zardari will be the patron-in-chief.

Since the constitution bars former president from taking part in politics, so the legal head of party will be Bilawal. The next election will be fought with the symbol of ‘arrow’. The PPP circles have a consensus that the next election will be contested under the leadership of Bilawal.

It is pertinent to mention that it was in the Musharraf regime that PPP, whose chairperson was Benazir Bhutto, was banned and party leadership got PPPP registered with the election commission under the leadership of Makhdoom Amin Fahim to take part in the 2002 elections.

PPP secured its registration before the 2013 elections. Its symbol is sword, patron-in-chief is Bilawal and the secretary-general is Sardar Latif Khosa. There are no allegations against PPP and it is Bilawal’s party, Khosa has said. The party leader and former president Asif Ali Zardari has already said in a meeting in Karachi that the party will be restored completely.

The party will go into the next elections from the platform of PPP. However, the tickets for the local body elections are being issued from the PPPP. Khosa said he had suggested to the party leadership that both the parties should be merged into one PPP but the party leadership has postponed the implementation of this proposal for the time being.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2014.