Revamping Punjab PPP

As electoral battle heats up, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has put into the field a new team in Punjab, captained by the shrewd political manipulator Manzoor Wattoo, second, perhaps, only to the party boss in the art of realpolitik. He replaces Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, a no less party loyalist and a perfect 'jiyala', but certainly wanting in astuteness that the party needs now to stand up to the Sharifs'-led PML (N) in Punjab.
According to a notification issued by the party, the secretary general of PPP Punjab chapter, Azizur Rehman Chan, too has been supplanted by Tanveer Ashraf Kaira, a finance minister in Punjab in good old days when the PPP was the PML (N)'s coalition partner. And to snatch 'Takht-i-Lahore', from the Sharifs, the PPP has handed over local leadership to the Ghorkis, one of the Bhuttos' time-tested supporters. In fact, Latif Khosa-Imtiaz Warraich-Raja Riaz trio, that made up for party's core command in the province, was found to be quite lightweight and had failed to pose a matching challenge to the PML (N). Despite its heavy and often aggressive posturing, it had failed to put the government on the defensive on any major issue. Resultantly, the popularity of PPP in the country's biggest province has been falling and that must have heavily weighed in with the PPP co-chairman - now that he wants the next chief minister of Punjab to be a 'jiyala'.
Will the next chief of Punjab be a PPP 'jiyala'? There is no immediate answer given the mixed reaction reported by the media. Manzoor Wattoo has never been a party loyalist; he joined PPP after getting elected as independent in 2008 - though once before, in 1993, he had dislodged the Ghulam Haider Wyne-led PML government in Punjab through a vote of no-confidence with the PPP support. But more often he has been in others' camps, earning him the stigma of a political opportunist. And, then manipulating a set game is not the same thing as winning an election - a challenge now cut out for him by Asif Ali Zardari. Some may say with Chaudhrys now on the side of PPP he has better prospects; but there too he would be confronting an equally shrewd set of leaders who have their eyes fixed on chief ministership of Punjab. No doubt, the Punjab PPP needed new leadership as the incumbent had failed to carry the workers with it, but a traditional 'jiyala' in urban Punjab is essentially for worker welfare-oriented leadership, a bill the Kairas and the Ghorkis may fit but not Wattoo. More than anywhere else in the country, the Punjab PPP workers still draw inspiration from the party founding fathers' ideology. For them to barter away their ideological commitment for political gains certainly would be a hard choice. On the face of it, Wattoo, whose expertise in power manipulation may be quite masterly, doesn't have that image and reputation.
This is not the first such move on the part of Zardari; he is a man of realpolitik, for him politics is a game of winning or losing power. He wants to win the coming election whatever it may take. He accepted the MQM version of local government system knowing full well that his decision would cost him dearly in rural Sindh. In Punjab his decision to replace the set of 'jiyala' workers with an unpredictable commodity is not very different from his earlier stand in Sindh. His is a high-stake gamble, and he may win it - given his track record of astute politics that over time has strengthened not only his hold on his party but put his opponents on the back foot all through last four years or so. Frankly speaking, the Punjab PPP doesn't have a high-profile leader of Wattoo's standing though it is never short of committed workers. So if winning the next election is all that the present ruling coalition wants then handing over this task to Wattoo is no mistake.