Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari arrived in Lahore for a week-long visit on Saturday. He is accompanied by his sister Bakhtawar Zardari.“The chairman will meet PPP delegates from south Punjab from September 7 to 9,” central Punjab president Manzoor Wattoo told the media in front of Bilawal House. He said Bilawal would hold meetings with the members of PPP Central and Provincial Executive Councils and discuss ways to revamp the party in the province. Bilawal will also meet representatives of the PPP’s Kissan Wing to formulate a Kissan Policy. “Bilawal is likely to devise a strategy for the upcoming local government elections. Divisional presidents might be asked to give their input on wooing voters,” a PPP member said. Bilawal’s method appears to be in stark contrast to that of his father who is holding meetings with the big fish in the party and issuing statements from abroad. The trouble is that the PPP’s revival attempts appear to be constituted of a diffused approach with little coherence. If Bilawal is looking to revive the PPP, then the seven-party alliance against the PML-N announced in Punjab after a meeting at Manzoor Wattoo’s place makes little sense. Nor does an alliance with the ANP and JUI-F in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. You cannot differentiate yourself from the pack by joining the pack. This is now the key challenge that Bilawal appears to have accepted. However, the same vision does not seem to be shared by his father, who held a meeting in Dubai with the party’s senior members, including Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Qamar Zaman Kaira and Faryal Talpur on Tuesday. Zardari and Bilawal appear to have a contrasting approach. It is not clear whether this is a considered father-son strategy or a sign of Bilawal breaking loose. Bilawal’s statements have focused on criticising the PTI while Zardari has pointed his guns at the PML-N, accusing it of reviving the politics of the 1990s. Bilawal’s focus appears to be reviving the local parties while Zardari’s focus appears to be consolidating the PPP in the face of the Karachi operation on the level of national politics. Moreover, despite these efforts, fissures within the PPP are still emerging. In August, the daughter of long-serving PPP leader late Syed Iqbal Haider left the PPP. The widening of cracks in the PPP Taxila and Wah chapters has been reported, while an ex-PPP nazim left the party to join the PTI on Monday. It is becoming unclear as to who defines the PPP’s politics: Zardari or Bilawal? The son has to distance himself from his father’s corrupt image if he wants to appear credible and honest. He is handling the revival of the grassroots party while Zardari is handling the precarious national position does not a coherent approach make. The PPP seems more interested in internal manoeuvrings than providing a different agenda for the local bodies polls. Bilawal may be meeting a number of alienated grassroots PPP activists on his cross-country tour, but it is not yet clear how the PPP’s agenda will be different from the PTI or the PML-N if it gets elected. Moreover, the corruption allegations need to be responded to with more than just empty rhetoric.
pk.shafaqna.com
