With President Asif Zardari finding it difficult to retain the position of co-chairperson of the PPP along with his responsibilities as the President of Pakistan, efforts are quietly on to pass on the party’s leadership to his son, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. Bilawal technically already holds the position of chairperson of the PPP, but he has to come back from England, where he is studying, and demonstrate that he is the leader of the party, earlier led by his mother, Benazir Bhutto.
But this is not as easy as it appears. A drive has been launched by a section of the PPP in Sindh to ensure that the party’s leadership remains in the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s family. Bilawal is a Zardari and, therefore, does not fit in with such a scheme of things.
As M. A. Niazi says in an article in The Nation, “Though Benazir (Bhutto’s eldest child) ended up inheriting Zulfikar's mantle, the inheritors he intended were his sons, Murtaza and Shahnawaz. Shahnawaz died first, leaving a daughter, and was dead by the time Benazir became PM for the first time.
“Murtaza was elected an MPA (Member of Provincial Assembly), though his other candidates were wiped out, in the 1993 election. He was killed, and a distraught Benazir's government was sacked soon after. He left behind a daughter, Fatima, and a son, Zulfikar Ali. Though still a child, some of the Sindh PPP cadres are looking towards him (Zulfikar) as the ultimate successor, not Bilawal, whom they dismiss as 'Zardari's son'.”
That may be the reason why the rumour mill has it that President Zardari wants his son to become Prime Minister as soon as possible.
But is Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani willing to vacate his position? He is too powerful today to be shown the door by Mr Zardari.
Clearly, Mr Gilani is doing everything possible to make his position secure in view of the goings-on in the PPP. He may be the most suitable person to take over as the President of Pakistan once Mr Zardari is compelled to resign. He seems to be working on the strategy that if the Prime Minister’s position falls vacant, it should go to Mr Sharif, and not to Bilawal.
Despite Prime Minister Gilani’s recent assurance in the National Assembly that all those held in custody without taking recourse to the process of law will be set free, nothing substantial has happened so far. Only five of the thousands of “missing persons” have returned home.
According to The Daily Times (Jan 7), “The law states that no person can be kept in custody unless he has been produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest. (But) this law is practiced more in breach by the intelligence and security agencies, and at a more ordinary everyday level, even by the police.”
The Supreme Court has given a good dressing-down to the government. The News quoted Mr Justice Javed Iqbal as saying, “There is no law that permits the abduction of people”. Then he observed that the intelligence and other agencies had to abide by the law of the land. He reminded them that the days of their arbitrary style of functioning had gone. The judiciary could no longer allow violations of the law once this was brought to its notice.
But this is not as easy as it appears. A drive has been launched by a section of the PPP in Sindh to ensure that the party’s leadership remains in the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s family. Bilawal is a Zardari and, therefore, does not fit in with such a scheme of things.
As M. A. Niazi says in an article in The Nation, “Though Benazir (Bhutto’s eldest child) ended up inheriting Zulfikar's mantle, the inheritors he intended were his sons, Murtaza and Shahnawaz. Shahnawaz died first, leaving a daughter, and was dead by the time Benazir became PM for the first time.
“Murtaza was elected an MPA (Member of Provincial Assembly), though his other candidates were wiped out, in the 1993 election. He was killed, and a distraught Benazir's government was sacked soon after. He left behind a daughter, Fatima, and a son, Zulfikar Ali. Though still a child, some of the Sindh PPP cadres are looking towards him (Zulfikar) as the ultimate successor, not Bilawal, whom they dismiss as 'Zardari's son'.”
That may be the reason why the rumour mill has it that President Zardari wants his son to become Prime Minister as soon as possible.
But is Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani willing to vacate his position? He is too powerful today to be shown the door by Mr Zardari.
Gilani’s survival strategy
Mr Gilani’s closeness to the Pakistan Army is too well known. He is now trying to mend fences with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also. According to Business Recorder, “… there are sharply contrasting positions taken by various factions within the ruling coalition on the two-term bar on a candidate for the office of Prime Minister. Even when Prime Minister Gilani has offered to lift this bar and Mr Nawaz Sharif told his partymen last Sunday that he would accept the repeal of the 17th Amendment untied to his future candidature; the diktat of realpolitik cannot be defied.”Clearly, Mr Gilani is doing everything possible to make his position secure in view of the goings-on in the PPP. He may be the most suitable person to take over as the President of Pakistan once Mr Zardari is compelled to resign. He seems to be working on the strategy that if the Prime Minister’s position falls vacant, it should go to Mr Sharif, and not to Bilawal.
“Missing persons” again
The issue of “missing persons”, mostly Baloch nationalists abducted by security and intelligence agencies, is again in the limelight. The case relating to the “missing persons”, which led to the removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry during the regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf, has been taken up afresh by a three-member Bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court following a petition filed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.Despite Prime Minister Gilani’s recent assurance in the National Assembly that all those held in custody without taking recourse to the process of law will be set free, nothing substantial has happened so far. Only five of the thousands of “missing persons” have returned home.
According to The Daily Times (Jan 7), “The law states that no person can be kept in custody unless he has been produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest. (But) this law is practiced more in breach by the intelligence and security agencies, and at a more ordinary everyday level, even by the police.”
The Supreme Court has given a good dressing-down to the government. The News quoted Mr Justice Javed Iqbal as saying, “There is no law that permits the abduction of people”. Then he observed that the intelligence and other agencies had to abide by the law of the land. He reminded them that the days of their arbitrary style of functioning had gone. The judiciary could no longer allow violations of the law once this was brought to its notice.
Source: The Tribune, Chandigarh, India.
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