WikiLeaks fallout: PML-N plans damage control meeting

Leaders will discuss image rebuilding and party reorganisation.

ISLAMABAD: Key figures of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will gather early next week to discuss how to prop up the public image of its top leaders in the wake of damaging WikiLeaks disclosures.

The meeting, scheduled to take place on Monday, will be chaired by Nawaz Sharif. PML-N leaders will also discuss the party’s reorganisation drive, which will be completed by the middle of January.

This week WikiLeaks disclosed that Sharif and another top leader of his party had been assuring American diplomats, stationed in Islamabad, of their loyalty, in sharp contrast to their public position on the matter.

Another riddle that the major opposition groups have been trying to solve is whether Sharif was in an agreement with the Saudi royalty to desist from politics for 10 years from the time of his exile back in December 2000.

The cables sent to Washington by American diplomats in some Arab capitals said the Saudis were not happy with Sharif, because he violated the agreement backed by them. Though the PML-N denied having any such accord, there has been strong insistence by Arabs that it is a reality.

Another worry for the participants of the meeting will be the military’s apparent ‘dislike’ for the elder Sharif. One of the memos disclosed that Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had once said he did not want to see President Asif Zardari continuing to rule Pakistan, but he would also never like Sharif to replace him because he was not a trustworthy person.

“All these issues will come under discussion. We feel it has hurt our public image and there is a need for damage control,” a PML-N leader told The Express Tribune on Friday.

The meeting will also look into the drive that the party embarked on last month to reorganise itself at the district, provincial and national levels. Nawaz Shad set a deadline of six weeks for completing the process at the last meeting in early November. A party official said that the problems in Azad Jammu and Kashmir will be the special focus of the reorganisation discussion.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2010.