Re: Has PPP started to fall apart?
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/print1.asp?id=83251
Masood Sharif quits PPP over policy differences
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader and former Intelligence Bureau chief Masood Sharif Khan Khattak quit the party on Tuesday after being associated with it for 20 years. He wrote an e-mail to the party leader Benazir Bhutto to announce his resignation from the basic membership of the PPP and sent its copies to several newspapers and television channels. “After twenty years of association with the party and having worked very closely with you, as your intelligence chief when you were the prime minister, I am resigning from the membership of the party with a very heavy heart indeed. The events of all those twenty years are well known to you. I am proud of the fact that I was able to acquit myself, at all times, in an honourable manner,” he said in his e-mail.
Though Masood Sharif in his e-mail told Benazir Bhutto that he didn’t want to elaborate the reasons for his resignation, he later told The News that he felt uncomfortable in the PPP on account of certain party policies. “I increasingly found my views at variance with the party leadership. I am known as someone who follows his mind. It was the call of my conscience to part ways with the PPP,” he said. Careful not to offend anyone, Masood Sharif pointed out that the so-called “war on terror” was mostly being fought in the NWFP. He said one could not be oblivious to the suffering of the Pashtuns as a result of the current government policy. “Why everything has to happen in the Frontier? Why our people here have to suffer. Look at what is happening in Swat. Surely, there are better ways to do this job,” he argued. He stressed that there could be no military solution of the conflict in Waziristan, Swat or elsewhere in Fata.
When asked whether he had reservations over the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) or Benazir Bhutto’s attempt to strike a deal with President General Pervez Musharraf, Masood Sharif chose not to comment directly on these issues. But he pointed out that Major General (retd) Naseerullah Babar too had resigned from the PPP due to policy differences. To a question whether he quit the PPP over the issue of denial of ticket for contesting the election for the National Assembly seat from his native Karak district, Masood Sharif said he was being offered tickets for both the National Assembly and the NWFP Assembly seats. “Everybody knows the PPP doesn’t have a vote-bank in Karak. I secured almost 18,000 votes in the 2002 elections for the National Assembly at a time when the MMA had swept the polls in the NWFP. My efforts and those of my friends and supporters enabled me to get those votes and become runner-up to the victorious MMA candidate,” he explained. Masood Sharif said he had decided not to contest the coming elections. He said he would visit Karak during the election campaign to consult his supporters and then decide as to what was best for the district. “But I would like to take part in future elections from Karak,” he added. He said he had no intention of joining another political party. It may be added that Masood Sharif spent three years in jail after the ouster of the PPP government. In fact, he was the second party leader after Asif Ali Zardari to suffer the most as a result of his association with the PPP and for remaining head of the IB during Benazir Bhutto’s prime ministership.