Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday appointed Fauzia Wahab as PPP information secretary, replacing Sherry Rehman, the former information minister who quit the cabinet over the curbs on media purportedly ordered by President Asif Ali Zardari.
The appointment seemed a reaction to the resignation as federal information minister Sherry Rehman in protest against curbs on media by the government when she was needed the most. Sherry Rehman, in a brief chat with reporters here, said that she had not resigned from the office of secretary information of the PPP. However, she said that she did not want to create any kind of crack in the party ranks. PPP doesnt want to put any curb on media, she added.
Sources said that Zardari is not happy with dissident party leaders including Sherry Rehman, Raza Rabbani, Naheed Khan, Safdar Abbasi and others who parted ways with party when it was passing through crisis. They said PPP would not contact the dissident party leaders, saying that Fauzia Wahabs appointment is reflective of the fact that President Zardari would not allow anyone to bring them back at friendly terms with the present PPP leadership.
Aitzaz Ahsan was stripped of his Central Executive Committee membership for his prominent role in the lawyers movement to restore the former chief justice. He was charged with breaching the partys discipline by publicly criticising its failure to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice.
Naheed Khan and Dr Safdar Abassi have been vocal critics of Zardari since he succeeded late Benazir Bhutto as PPP leader following her assassination in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. Naheed Khan had accused him of running the party as a one-man show, failing to consult his party and abandoning Benazirs political vision. The couple (Naheed Khan, Safdar Abbasi) believes that Zardari has hijacked her party and marginalised those who were closest allies of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.
The source also said that another reason for Zardaris anger was that Naheed Khan, Safdar Abbasi and Aitzaz Ahsan had recently visited Benazirs sister Sanam Bhutto in UK, which he regarded a plot to destabilise his government. Despite her deep antipathy for politics, Sanam Bhutto had earlier been touted by some senior party figures as a potential successor of Benazir Bhutto.