The formula is pretty straightforward: listen to the workers and work with them. If you aren’t entirely convinced they know which way is up, just look at the numbers. The Pakistan Peoples Party went from 93 to 8 seats in the Punjab Assembly of 371 in just two general elections. Its elected representatives and party office bearers were clearly losing ground. The party had nearly been wiped out from this key province where the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had taken over.
And so, on November 18, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the chairman of the PPP, made some changes in the Punjab. He replaced the party’s head there, Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, with party stalwart Qamar Zaman Kaira as the president of PPP central Punjab, and made Nadeem Afzal Chan the new general secretary. This was part of a greater strategy dating back to April to breathe new life into the party. First, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah was replaced by Murad Ali Shah and Nisar Khuhro was made the party head in the province. Next they turned to the Punjab. Something had to be done if it wanted to survive the upcoming 2018 elections.
The people selected to reorganise the PPP in Punjab included Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Chaudhry Farooq, Nadeem Afzal Chan, Nadeem Asghar Kaira and Chaudhry Manzoor. “They met party workers throughout the Punjab and asked them for recommendations,” said Syed Ahsan Abbas Shah, a PPP jiyala from Lahore. “They asked us whom we want as our leader.”
The tide of opinion was generally against Wattoo. According to party insiders, during meetings, rallies and comments on social media sites, the workers had been expressing their anger against him. Everyone was smarting that the PML-N had swept the elections.
The PTI just took advantage of the fact that many key figures in the Punjab felt either left out or ignored by the PPP or were unhappy with the conciliatory tone it had taken with the PML-N instead of playing the role of a tough opposition
The decision to choose Kaira and Chan was thus lauded. “Both [of them] have a strong grip among the people and they are able to understand ground realities not only in their areas but also at the provincial level,” said Madiha Abbas, a party worker.
The new ‘B’ team
Qamar Zaman Kaira is a scion of the Kaira family, which has been in the PPP since the 1970s. His father Chaudhry Muhammad Zaman Kaira served as MPA in 1977. His uncle Haji Asghar Kaira was elected MNA in 1988 and 1993. They used to give a tough time to the Chaudhrys of Gujrat in Lala Musa, Kharian and Gujrat.
Kaira rose to fame soon after he won from Gujrat in 2002 after Musharraf made high school graduation compulsory for anyone to stand in the elections. His manners and arguments silenced his opponents on TV talks shows.
The Kairas have always been close to the Bhuttos. When Benazir returned to Pakistan in 2007 after a long stint in self-exile, Qamar Zaman’s younger cousin Tauqeer Kaira was part of her security team and was killed on October 18, 2007 when her homecoming convoy was attacked with a bomb. When Zardari became president he always acknowledged the hardships the Kaira family had faced for the PPP. He later made Qamar Zaman federal minister for Kashmir affairs and then federal information minister. When Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was disqualified by the Supreme Court, Kaira was seriously considered by the PPP for the slot. Additionally, Kaira has been the face of the party for several years. Given his popularity, many party leaders from central Punjab have sought his guidance on party affairs.
When it comes to Nadeem Afzal Chan, his clan, the Gondals have been with the PPP through thick and thin since the time of party founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Four members of the family made it to the national and provincial assemblies in the 2008 elections. Nadeem’s uncles Nazar Gondal and Zulfiqar Gondal were elected MNA and MPA. He himself was elected an MNA and his younger brother Waseem Afzal Chan was elected MPA. Nadeem used to be a backbencher in the PPP cadre but the party’s mainstream politicians began noticing him when he started loyally defending the party on TV talk shows. He was honest in his criticism of the wrongdoings of party leaders as well.
His time came when the party chose him for the Senate election in Punjab in 2014. His candid way of speaking, clean credentials and down-to-earth demeanour earned him respect, not only in the PPP ranks but also with disgruntled PML-N MPAs who also voted for him in the election.
According to a party source, Chan has been allotted a room in Bilawal House, Lahore since 2015. He is considered close to both Bilawal and Zardari and is considered to enjoy the support of hardcore jiyalas at the grassroots level.
Manzoor Wattoo with Asif Zardari
The Wattoo weakness
Manzoor Wattoo made his mark in the party after winning two NA seats from his hometown Okara in the general elections of 2008. He joined the party and was made a federal minister. He soon became a close associate of Zardari. In 2012, he was made the PPP’s Punjab president.
“It was a shock for hardcore jiyalas to accept Wattoo as their president,” said a former MPA from south Punjab. “Wattoo tried to woo electables to the party and during that process, jiyalas maintained a distance from him.” Wattoo faced the most resistance from the PPP Lahore chapter, said one worker. It did not help that despite issuing several instructions, he failed to address reservations of party workers or improve the party’s popularity in Lahore, where the PPP struggle had taken birth, said a PPP leader from Multan.
During Wattoo’s tenure the party was considered the ‘B’ team of the PML-N because he believed in a policy of reconciliation instead of giving the ruling party a tough time, especially when it was struggling on major fronts. “During Wattoo’s tenure the PPP performed badly both in the general elections and later the local government elections in 2015,” added the PPP Multan leader.
The party was simply not seen as a choice for the people. “The PPP was perceived as the PML-N’s affiliate,” says political analyst Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi. “It is no longer viewed as an alternative to the PML-N. As long as the PPP doesn’t rehabilitate its position in Punjab and comes out with a social and economic program for the common people, it doesn’t have much scope between the PML-N and PTI.”
The PPP vote shrank from 29% in 2008 to 11% in 2013, a former MNA told The Friday Times, adding that they managed to win only two NA seats from Punjab in 2013. Another PPP leader, from Gujranwala, told TFT, that Wattoo also failed to mobilise workers across central Punjab in the local government elections. “The PPP only managed to place its chairman and vice chairman in Okara, his own constituency, and Lala Musa where the Kairas played a part in mobilising demotivated party workers.”
It would be unfair to blame Wattoo entirely for the performance of the PPP in Punjab. The new south Punjab secretary general Shaukat Basra takes a more forgiving view: “It is not true that jiyalas didn’t liked Wattoo. Even though he was new to the party he still tried his level best to revive it,” he said. Wattoo saheb is still in the party and he is not going anywhere, added Basra. Indeed, another insider told TFT that Wattoo is likely to be given a key role and position in the centre on Zardari’s recommendation.
Defections and the battle for south Punjab
The PPP’s weak flank was attacked after the 2013 elections when the rival PTI’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi started eating into its support base. He gunned for Nazar Gondal, Raja Riaz from Faisalabad, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich from Gujranwala, Samsam Bukhari, Sardar Bahadur Khan Sehar and Malik Niaz Jhakar from Layyah, Aamir Dogar from Multan, Sardar Saif Khan Khosa from DG Khan and Qayyum Jatoi from Muzaffargarh.
“He managed to persuade Aamir Dogar, Malik Niaz Jhakar, Sardar Bahadur Khan Sehar, Raja Riaz and Sardar Saif Khan Khosa to join the PTI,” says a former PPP MNA. Now the party is hoping that the people who had left the PPP will return before the next general elections. Shah Mahmood Qureshi also managed to win over Dr Shabbir Qureshi from Muzaffargarh and Khawaja Sheerazul Mehmood, a former federal minister from Dera Ghazi Khan.
The PTI just took advantage of the fact that many key figures in the Punjab felt either left out or ignored by the PPP or were unhappy with the conciliatory tone it had taken with the PML-N instead of playing the role of a tough opposition. Take the example of Dr Shabbir Qureshi, the son of former MNA Mohsin Ali Qureshi. He talks about how his family contributed to the PPP’s success; Khalida Mohsin Ali Qureshi won NA-176 (Muzaffargarh-I) for the PPP in 2002 and Mohsin Ali Qureshi won in 2008. “My elders worked really hard in the constituency but in the 2013 general elections former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani completely ignored them and instead awarded the party ticket to Muhammad Arshad Abbas Qureshi, the son of landlord Abbas Qureshi,” he said. “From the time of the general elections we were not on good terms with the PPP South Punjab leadership and when [Shah Mahmood] Qureshi saheb gave us respect and contacted us, I decided to join the [PTI].”
(There are, of course, other explanations to why party tickets were awarded to different people. The PPP South Punjab office bearers refute Dr Shabbir Qureshi’s claims, saying that ahead of the 2013 elections, Mohsin Ali Qureshi had gone into a coma and Shabbir Qureshi was too young for the constituency with little or no penetration among the masses. Thus, the party decided to give him the provincial assembly ticket instead of National Assembly ticket—and it proved to be a correct decision as he lost the provincial assembly seat.)
Three other bigwigs, former ministers Syed Samsam Bukhari and Ashraf Sohna, and former PPP veteran Abbas Raza Rizvi, also left the PPP in 2015 and joined the PTI from central Punjab. According to insiders, these resignations were a huge blow to the PPP in central Punjab, and particularly in Okara where these leaders could have played a decisive role in mobilising workers and voters at the grassroots level.
Plan for revival of PPP in Punjab
Now that the party is being reorganised, we have started to hear new rhetoric from it. The first tactic is to start saying the right things or at least do some damage control. So, on Sunday, Qamar Zaman Kaira told the media that some non-political opponents of the PPP, including some lobbies in the army, judiciary, and media, were trying to give the impression that Bhutto’s party was finished in Punjab. “However, such impressions will not hinder the resolve of the PPP workers, as Bhutto’s army is still active against all those who wanted to eliminate it,” he said.
The other tactic is to be honest with the people who have been unhappy with the PPP in Punjab. So, according to Kaira, Bilawal will be addressing these issues at the party’s foundation day on November 30. Another strategy is to start sounding more like the opposition for the PML-N. So Kaira called Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ‘Show-baz Sharif’, ostensibly for the publicity around his public works, and started hitting out on unfulfilled PML-N election promises. Add to this the threat of a long march by December 27 if Nawaz Sharif did not address Bilawal’s four demands presented on October 17, the anniversary of the Karsaz attack: A parliamentary committee on national security, passage of PPP’s Panama bill, implementation of Asif Zardari’s CPEC resolution and the immediate appointment of a foreign minister.
The plan is for Bilawal to spend more time in Punjab. “He will address the all-workers convention in Lahore on November 30 and will conduct meetings with party workers and officer bearers from the other parts of Punjab and other provinces, including KP and Gilgit Baltistan,” Kaira added.
There are plans to also announce youth and education policies, added the PPP’s newly elected secretary general in Punjab Nadeem Afzal Chan. He told TFT that Bilawal has also announced a zero tolerance policy for corruption. Self-accountability is being introduced in the party and you will see the results very soon, he added.
Rhetoric aside, the greatest challenge is for the party to end confusion on who is calling the shots. Few people have forgotten the damage Zardari did by saying Bilawal was still learning the ropes. “Some leaders and workers feel that the ultimate decision-making powers lie with Zardari,” says a central PPP leader who is close to both Zardari and Bilawal. Just take the fact that Zardari backed Wattoo, who followed a policy of reconciliation with the PML-N, but now Bilawal wants to give the ruling party a hard time. If the PPP wants to regain lost ground in Punjab, the father and son will at least have to be on the same page.
If you want to win an election the Punjab, try not doing the following things. This is what hurt the PPP so that went from 93 Punjab Assembly seats in 2008 to only eight seats in 2013:
Stand up against terrorism: The PPP was under threat from the Taliban as it had been vocal about operations against them. The PML-N and PTI played it safe and stayed quiet much to their advantage.
Lose your prime minister: Both PPP prime ministers were sent packing. Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf were not able to lead the PPP’s election campaign for 2013. Add to this, Gilani’s son’s kidnapping and the rental power plant cases against Ashraf.
Don’t lead from the front: Neither Zardari nor Bilawal led from the frontlines unlike Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan for the election campaign. It also did not help that when in power (2008-2013) the PPP was not able to tackle the electricity crisis, which Nawaz Sharif milked for his campaign.
Go easy on the ruling party: PPP’s Wattoo’s mistake was to support the ruling PML-N and be reconciliatory. This meant that the PPP did not work as a strong opposition to the PML-N.
The writer is a senior correspondent at The Friday Times with a focus on politics, economy and militancy. He also hosts the Hassan Naqvi Show on Naya Daur.
