Baby Bhutto and Daddy Dearest.

[Huda]

The assumption that the father and son had a
major tiff is wrong. Not because they did not have
a tiff, but because this is exactly what the father
wanted to portray. Zardari succeeded in sending
him away and making a major news out of it
while his own recent visit to Dubai in order to
lure him back is another stunt. Bilawal’s absence
in the coming election campaign will prove that.
Bilawal’s decision to move to Pakistan to be a
political leader took Zardari by surprise since he
hadn’t planned that for him yet. Still, except for a
few security cautions, he let baby Bhutto proceed
with his passion. The incident is well known,
where Bilawal refused to share Bhutto’s death
anniversary speech with his father and the
advisors, which was again something that was
glorified instead of it being supressed from the
media.
Afterwards, when Bilawal took charge of the ticket
distribution, he actually went through the tedious
trouble of making performance evaluation sheets
of all members of national and provincial
assemblies. One of the people helping him in
doing all this was Faisal Raza Abidi. A couple of
months ago, he also stated that PPPP will give 70
per cent tickets to the people with a clean record.
Everything was going just fine till the time the
tickets had to be awarded and the launching of
the campaign in earnest. Zardari had to do what
was necessary; instead of letting the idealist
Bilawal take charge, he kept him away from the
****** business that politics has been in the
Islamic Republic. Clean record of ticket holders
was Bilawal’s major concern. Bilawal’s clean
record is what Zardai needs for the next time
around and not for these upcoming elections.
Zardari has proven time and again that he just
doesn’t luckily survive every tide of the ocean that
comes his way but he actually has a surfers’
guide developed by himself alone. With all the
bad governance and corruption in this tenure,
Zardari knows using Bilawal card is not the best
bet. (This does not mean necessarily PPPP will
crash unceremoniously as most are predicting).
The criteria for awarding tickets in almost all
constituencies was really different. People like
Asif Hashmi who couldn’t win a seat in 2008
elections have been awarded two tickets. He as
chairman Matrooka Waqf Imlaaq had allegedly
sold Gurdwara’s trust property to DHA. What
Fehmida Mirza did on her last day in the
assembly was her qualifying certificate for the
Badeen ticket. And the list for the women
reserved seats sent by Phuppo didn’t have
Farzana Raja’s name in the Top 10. When dear
daddy got to know about it or, maybe when
Farzana got to know, she offered the president
election fund from the corruption in BISP and
made Zardari promptly change the list.
That’s why I believe, Addi and Muzafar Tappi are
not as vital as people believe they are. Their
decisions are neither unchangeable nor
necessarily their own. They take guidance from
the master planner too which in people party’s
case isn’t God. It was really easy for Zardari to
bring Bilawal back if he wanted to. All he was
supposed to do was to reverse some decisions
taken by Addi on Bilawal’s request and convince
Bilawal to compromise on some. He doesn’t need
124 seats. He needs just enough to play a part in
a coalition formation and retain his presidency.
Every seat PTI wins, will make PPP stronger as PTI
refuses to have anything to do with the main
players. Do you think PPPP hasn’t started their
election campaign because of TTP threat? ‘ Tis not
so … they haven’t yet felt the need to.
I doubt any party will be able to form a
government without nominating Zardari for the
next term as president. I also doubt if they will be
able to retain their government for five years. In
case they do, Zardari will prove to be no friendly
opposition … in fact a hot coal. The next elections
will be ripe for Bilawal to harvest the crop sown
by daddy dearest and to ask people to honour his
mom’s blood.
This reminds me of the meeting BB called in
Dubai before signing NRO. She asked all the CEC
members if she should sign the NRO with Gen.
Musharraf. Most of the party had the feeling that
she wanted to and, therefore, nobody resisted the
deal. In fact they appreciated it. The only person
who went against the idea was Shah Mehmood
Qureshi and he said that PPPP will suffer from
the stigma of signing the deal with a general for
all times to come. BB asked him if he believed
they could win the 2008 elections without her
being in Pakistan to which he replied in the
negative. With this BB clinched the issue though
Shah Mehmood soon after coming out of the
room confided to his mates that BB had forgotten
one option of coming to Pakistan and offering her
arrest.
This is the time when the media went berserk
saying it was a deal and Zardari held a press
conference from Dubai when he uttered the
golden words ”deal nahin dialogue”. The new
Peoples Party might not be the best thing to ever
have happened but that was inevitable. When you
suppress somebody for too long, you
unknowingly create an apparition bigger than the
local exorcists can get rid off.
As I write this, I’ve read in leading newspapers
that Bilawal is expected to take part in the
function observing Bhutto’s death anniversary.
This is more of a family affair than an election
campaign, which his father will like him to miss
this time. Bilawal’s inclination towards his
grandfather’s agenda will be used to greater effect
by Zardai at the right time.