*Sincere PPP party leaders like Raza Rabbani, who have been humiliated by Zardari in the past are now refusing important ministries. They need to contact Musharraf’s ex-laaaa minister (big arm walla) Wasi Zafar for this position now. I remember Wasi Zafar, the lota was in the PPP (ran from Faisalabad back then) so he might actually consider it.
For the record, Rabbani resigned from his earlier position because it was reported that Zardari was so furious about how the nation was turning up against him and supporting the Chief Justice, that he lost it and called rabbani a ‘khassi’ (impotent person with no kids) because he failed to follow orders properly.*
Sunday, May 31, 2009
By Tariq Butt
ISLAMABAD: Senator Mian Raza Rabbani has said no to the repeated offers by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to become the law minister, sources in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) told The News.
“I will neither deny nor confirm the offer by the president and the prime minister because this is our internal party matter,” Rabbani said when approached for comments.
A source close to the president said that Zardari realises that the law portfolio is without a minister for quite some time and that is why he had asked Rabbani again and again to accept the slot.
When asked for comments, PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab’s reaction was similar to that of Rabbani. During a chat with this correspondent, she said she would not like to talk about the discussions taking place in closed-door meetings, chaired by the president or the prime minister.
However, other senior PPP sources said that nothing “positive” came out from nearly half-a-dozen meetings that the president and the prime minister held with Rabbani.
“I’m all right with my present position in the party and I’m serving it in a better way according to my capacity,” was Rabbani’s standard reply whenever Zardari and Gilani insisted him to accept the office of the law minister, according to PPP insiders. **The insiders, some of them being generally sympathetic to Rabbani for his principles, said that he was “punished” for speaking his mind in open and closed-door party and government deliberations, chaired by the president and the prime minister, on a host of key issues. **
Fauzia Wahab conceded that the law portfolio needed a minister. She was more concerned to note that a number of judicial officers had been repatriated from the Law Ministry to the judiciary because of the new judicial policy.