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| India-Pakistan |
| PPP's decline |
| 2015-10-14 |
| [DAWN] THE PPP today behaves almost like a pauper who has spent all his fortune but who clings on to grand descriptions. It talks about past glory, of sacrifices, of its struggle against martial law. It promises a new charter, even some kind of a revolution. Unfortunately, the party has very little to show for all this huffing and puffing; it has only progressed backwards and is sinking deeper with every move that it doesn't make. We may interject that this state of the PPP is more specific to Punjab. The fact is, however, that once the journey towards oblivion has begun in Punjab, decline elsewhere -- in Sindh -- cannot be far off. Indeed, given just how easily the PPP set-up in Sindh can be ridiculed, the slip in the home province has long begun for the party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... , or whichever PPP leader one would like the remnants to be associated with at the moment. In Punjab, the sharp dip in the PPP's vote bank may appear deceptively of recent origin. In fact, the rot had been setting in for long. It is easy to select certain incidents and trends from many and string them together to arrive at the same conclusion: the erosion of the popular choice that the PPP embodied. Take the latest, the by-election in NA-122 that had the PPP candidate winning 803 votes. As symbols go, the constituency comprises areas from where Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... had won in 1988 -- her first election -- and also localities from where Sheikh Rashid, the 'father of socialism', had lost in the same polls. |
| Posted by:Fred |