Pakistan People’s Party’s first meeting after its defeat in the general elections was an eventful session.
The decision made in the meeting which was held in Lahore appeared to suggest the level of concern within the party over its poor performance.
Senator Aitzaz Ahsan was tasked to head a fact-finding committee to look into the reasons for the party poor performance in Punjab where the PPP won only two seats.
Mr Ahsan, in consultation with the committee members, who are yet to be nominated, will come up with recommendations to reorganise the party.
However, it was the discussion that preceded this decision that was newsworthy.
A heated debate and a frank exchange of ideas took place as the party’s losing candidates from Punjab gave their opinion about the party’s poor performance in the province. While the PPP has retained 29 National Assembly seats in Sindh, it could only manage two from Punjab. In the 2008 elections, PPP candidates from 49 constituencies of Punjab had reached the National Assembly.
Co-chaired by President Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at the fortified Bilawal House in Lahore, the participants of the meeting spoke frankly.
A former MNA of the party from central Punjab told Dawn that participants criticised former prime ministers Mr Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf. They argued that the two former prime ministers only looked after their own constituencies ignoring the rest of the province, and that these two leaders were also responsible for bringing a bad name to the party because of their alleged involvement in corruption cases.
One party loyalist even went so far as to say that “a few in the party filled their pockets through corruption at the cost of the entire party.”
Another factor which was blamed equally for the party’s defeat was the failure on the part of party’s former cabinet members to effectively defend President Zardari in the media, said the former MNA.
The inadequate portrayal of the PPP in the media was also seen as a reason for the party’s thrashing in the Punjab.
However, this does not mean that only the ministers were criticized. Some went further and even questioned the president.
A party loyalist from district Layyah waxed lyrical about the political secretary to the late Benazir Bhutto and praised her for maintaining an effective communication between the party leadership and the workers. He then added that the present lot of aides to the party leaders did the opposite.
He said, “One Nahid Khan kept the party leadership abreast of the on-the- ground developments and let party workers speak to BB every now and then. Now there are a half a dozen women who are supposed to do the same job but there is zero communication between the president and the party workers.”
Nahid Khan and her husband former Senator Safdar Abbasi were sidelined from the party after Ms Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007.
After this ‘hard talk’, President Zardari agreed to the suggestion that Bilawal Bhutto and his two daughters should spend considerable time in Pakistan and reach out to the party workers.
Earlier during the meeting a former lawmaker had pointed out that the complete absence of the Bhuttos from the election campaign.
“If we want to bounce back, we need Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa among us. Video messages are not enough,” said the lawmaker in his concluding remarks. During the election campaign, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto addressed election rallies through recorded video messages.
Apart from personalities and their acts, policies were also discussed.
There was a general consensus that the electoral defeat was closely linked to the party’s failure to address the energy crisis in the past five years. Everyone agreed that the PPP could have performed better in the elections in Punjab if the loadhsedding had been contained.
In his remarks, a former federal minister said the party needed to do some soul-searching to understand that voters could no longer be mobilised by slogans alone.
“Yes, there were incidences of rigging; however, the party has to accept the reality that the voters were unhappy with our performance and they expressed their resentment by rejecting us in the polls,” said the former minister.
Indeed, most participants of the meeting agreed that the party now had to improve its image and be seen as a party that could deliver.
This is why most people endorsed the suggestion put forwarded by a young participant who said that the PPP had one last chance to recapture its old glory by delivering in Sindh where it had the numbers to form the government.
He pointed out that with the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PML-N in Punjab and the PPP in Sindh, the 2018 elections will be contested on the basis of the performance.
If the party was able to govern well in Sindh, it would be in a better position to campaign in 2018.
“The only slogan that will work in 2018 will be good governance and the party which will serve its people well will win elections,” said the young participant.
There was also a suggestion that stalwarts such as Mian Raza Rabbani should be given a say in the reorganisation of the party. A party source told Dawn that it was Raza Rabbani’s idea to hold the meeting in Lahore and listen to the grievances of the party candidates.
Though President Zardari is said to have listened to all the comments and suggestions, it remains to be seen if he will heed them. The choice the party makes in Sindh in the coming days will reveal how much he really heard.
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