Toning down: Zardari, Altaf push for unity in Pakistan

Say country needs harmony now more than ever

ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI:

Amid rising tensions between the military and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the party’s co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain pushed for unity in Pakistan during a phone conversation on Thursday.

Zardari has been facing widespread criticism after his recent outburst against the security establishment. The PPP leader had accused the establishment of tarnishing his and his party’s image, threatening to bring the country to a standstill if the “character assassination” did not stop.

In reaction to the outburst, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had cancelled a scheduled meeting with the PPP leadership.

According to a press statement issued on Thursday, Zardari and Altaf discussed the country’s current political scenario, deciding that Pakistan “needs harmony and unity now more than ever”. However, nowhere did
the statement mention if Altaf endorsed Zardari’s speech against the military.

Former government allies, the two leaders emphasised that the people of urban and rural areas should live in harmony.

“Those who live and die in Sindh – both the people of the rural and the urban areas – should set aside their differences and live like brothers.”

Damage control

In what appears to be a damage control exercise, Zardari has invited the leadership of other political parties to an Iftar dinner on Friday (today).

According to sources, the PPP’s allies during the party’s 2008-13 tenure – the MQM, the Awami National Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid – have confirmed that they would attend the dinner.

Political observers see this step as an effort on the part of the PPP to demonstrate that it is not isolated and is still relevant, despite the party’s egregious performance in the recent Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly polls, in which the PPP was routed after five years in power.

The party also did not show any positive results in the local government elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or any of the by-polls held after its dismal performance in the 2013 general elections.

‘PPP stands by army’

Qamar Zaman Kaira, the PPP’s information secretary, told a news conference on Thursday that his party had always stood by the army.

“The PPP has never blamed the army as an institution. Rather, it has always stood by the armed forces. The party never levelled any allegations against the army even when its founding chairman (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) was hanged by the regime of the then military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq, who had come to power when he toppled the PPP’s first government.”

Zardari’s remarks have drawn a lot of criticism, and the PPP has been trying to placate everyone by saying that all the party co-chairman meant was that every institution must work within its constitutional limits.

Kaira reiterated the same, while Zardari’s sister Faryal Talpur also took a similar stance in a meeting with the office-bearers of the PPP’s youth wing later in the evening. The party’s information secretary claimed that the political parties had misinterpreted the former president’s remarks. “They should not be taken out of context.”

He said Zardari had always lauded the army’s role in trying to eliminate terrorism. “Why, then, would you think we would say something that is considered anti-establishment?”

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2015.