It is the first time that PPP’s top leadership in Balochistan has been snatched from a member of the tribal elite and handed over to a committed party worker with a middle class background. No doubt, Sadiq Umrani is one of the most prominent PPP leaders in Balochistan. During her last visit to Balochistan, former prime minister and the chairperson of the party, late Benazir Bhutto said in a public rally at Quetta’s Railway Hockey Ground that PPP had survived all conspiracies of the Establishment because it had committed leaders like Sadiq Umrani.In addition, federal minister of state Dr. Ayatullah Durrani has been appointed as the provincial secretary general of the ruling party which is increasingly becoming unpopular in the lawless province.
There are clear indications that President Zardari had to take this decision after worsening relations with Chief Minister Nawab Aslam and his younger brother Senator Lashkari Raisani, the former provincial president of the party. It is also clear that relationship between the Balochistan government and the PPP will, ironically, remain very tense and confrontational. Consider:
Chief Minister Raisani and Sadiq Umrani almost hate each other. When the PPP had decided to nominate Raisani as its chief ministerial candidate after the 2008 general elections, a disappointed Umrani was the first and only person to publicly oppose the decision. Feeling betrayed, Umrani cited multiple reasons to justify his resentment toward Mr. Raisani. For instance, he alleged that Raisani had opposed the nomination of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as the co-chairman of the party. He insists that Raisani is not “sufficiently committed” to the ruling party because he does not wholeheartedly recognize the 1970 constitution drafted during the time of its founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. On his part, Raisani has always publicly demanded a new social contract and the implementation of the recommendations made in the 1940 Lahore Resolution which championed the distinctive identity of sub-nationalities inside Pakistan.
Among several other developments that widened the gulf between the two leaders, the significant ones are the Senate elections, in which Nawab Raisani, surprisingly, voted in support of a non-PPP candidate and publicly condemned the imposition of the Governor’s Rule in the Punjab province by PPP’s late governor Salmaan Taseer against the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Nawaz) government.
Disagreement between CM Raisani and Umrani reached their peak in March 2009 when the latter accused the former in a press conference of massive corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, bad governance and extending support to the drug mafia. Since Mr. Umrani, ironically a minister in Raisani’s cabinet, made these charges onlydays before a scheduled visit of President Zardari to Balochistan, an incensed Raisani sacked Umrani and four other ministers from the cabinet.
Though all sacked ministers were reinstated after the intervention of PPP central leader Nabel Gabol and mediation of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Umarani and Raisani never reached at a point to truly respect and cooperate with each other. They have always seen one another suspiciously. One does not clearly know on whose side President Asif Ali Zardari is because snubbing an influential tribal chief like Aslam Raisani is as difficult as ignoring a veteran leader like Umrani.
Zardari’s woes have doubled in the wake of senator Lashkari Raisani’s growing disillusionment with the PPP’s faulty policies in Balochistan. Last month, when President Zardari announced the country’s top civilian award for the junior Raisani in recognition of his contributions to the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package, Mr.Lashkari refused to accept the coveted award. Lashkari has also asserted his dissatisfaction over the performance of the Balochistan government.
In the backdrop of dents in the ranks of the ruling party in Balochistan, it is certain that Mr. Umarani will face daunting challenges in the days to come in terms of uniting the PPP leaders, developing working relations with CM Raisani and improving the disfigured image of the ruling party. Many in Balochistan see the PPP-led government highly corrupt, incompetent and, worst of all, dysfunctional.
The people of Balochistan would like to see CM Raisani and Mr. Umrani sink their personal differences and work together for the greater interests of the people of Balochistan.
http://www.thebalochhal.com/2011/04/editorial-change-in-ppps-balochistan-leadership/
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