Re: Battle for Lahore.
News article depicting how PPP lost out in the battle for Lahore, the city which used to be under their control till 88, now they are losing the seats in a humiliating fashion.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
PPP’s erroneous Punjab sense needs tweak
By Muhammad Akram
LAHORE: The ruling Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) plan to outmanoeuvre its political rival PML-N in the central and northern Punjab with the help of shrewd power tactics seemed to have met the logical end with the humiliating defeat of joint PPP-PML-Q candidates in the recent by-elections.
The defeat has also raised serious questions in the already disenchanted rank and file of the party’s central Punjab chapter with the induction of Mian Manzoor Wattoo as its president. “The party has been going through a phase of acute disillusionment since many decades in the urban centres of the central Punjab and the introduction of Manzoor Wattoo proved to be last nail in the party’s coffin in this part of the country,” said a senior PPP leader from Lahore.
“The party failed to impress upon the voters in central Punjab in 2008 by-elections in the wake of tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto. How come the likes of Manzoor Wattoo could reinvigorate the already demoralised support base of the party who is not just new in the party but also brought in a culture with him alien to that of the party,” said the same party leader on condition of anonymity. Another party leader and former senior office-bearer of the Punjab chapter said, “The leadership seems to have lost any hope of winning urban centres of Punjab and hence the move to bring in Manzoor Wattoo to help the dithering support base recollected in a manner to give it a winning combination in alliance with the PML-Q wherever it seems possible.” “The move has bitterly failed in the by-elections and it is bound to meet the same fate in by-elections too unless the party returns to its true colours in term of ideology under a leadership that represents it in true fashion,” said the PPP leader who had dissociated himself from the party but not the thinking of which he was a proud part since inception until 80s.
In his analysis of the scheme with which the party was being controlled since 80s and until today, the provincial chapter was given in the hands of those who are mediocre and loyal to the individuals at the helm of affairs of the party and not the very ideology of the party which helped the party to rise to power only four years after its inception in 1967.
Giving account of the fall of the party in the central Punjab during last two decades, the former PPP leader said the margin of defeat of a PPP candidate against a PML-N from 1988 to 2008 elections has reached from few thousands votes to apparently insurmountable 50,000 votes in any given constituency. Take Lahore for instance, a forte of the PPP in 1970 and 1977 by-elections when party won all National Assembly seats and even in 1988 by-elections when it won more than half of the seats, the party’s candidates now lose election with a humiliating margin of 50,000 votes.
To win back Lahore and other urban centres of the central Punjab, the former PPP old guard said, the need to evolve a leadership that represents the people according to their thinking which largely evolves around persistence with status quo as goes their economy but visionary in terms of development of their areas on modern civic lines. No individual with outdated socio-political demean ours will be able to impress upon the urban voters who for the very reasons had since long accepted Nawaz Sharif as their leader and the rests off late were impressed by Imran Khan.
The political observers viewed the PML-N’s success in the by-elections as people’s quest for status quo in the system and its perpetuation and not as defeat of the PPP since the party has rendered little or no services to bring a change.
The PML-N’s success in the recent by-polls that attracted huge turn over, said observers, was an expression of faith in the leadership of the PML-N rather than suggesting any trend where Imran Khan’s PTI has anything to secure for it in by-elections only months away. Had the people responded with a sot of lacklustre in polls for a dying assembly, the same could have narrated as PML-N’s diminishing appeal against the PTI, said observers.
The observers see little or no improvement in the PPP’s tally for the next National Assembly even if it happened to a quadrangular contest with all the four major players in Punjab-the PML-N, the PPP, the PTI and the PML-Q-in the fray.
In a way the PPP may be a major loser against PTI that hitherto is being considered as a spoiler of only PML-N’s rightwing vote bank.
The observers said keeping in view the political landscape of urban Punjab, which had since long been dominated by conservative right, the PPP figures poorly therein against PML-N, PTI and PML-Q.
The little hope the PPP started to build in its alliance with the PML-Q has already fallen flat in the by-elections.
The only hope the PPP can look for now for better electoral prospects in urban Punjab, said the observers, was hectic engagement of Bilawal Zardari Bhutto and Aseefa Zardari Bhutto with the youth of Punjab. The young leadership of the PPP can help the party at a great deal by giving a message of change to the youth of Punjab as they might not be ready to take a political lesson from party leaders such as former premier Yousaf Raza Gilani and Senator Jahangir Badr or the power political wizards like Manzoor Wattoo.