\u201cYou learn every day in politics,\u201d PPP\u2019s top leader insists, saying one person does not make party\u2019s decision
\nThe Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has clarified that its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, is still the party\u2019s candidate for the prime ministership despite his father, PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, believing he is \u201cinexperienced\u201d.
\n\u201cOur party\u2019s chairman is Pakistan Peoples Party\u2019s candidate for prime ministership,\u201d PPP Central Secretary Information Faisal Karim Kundi said during an interview on Geo News\u2019 programme \u201cNaya Pakistan\u201d on Friday.
\nBilawal has been presenting himself as an option for leading the country out of the ongoing crises as he rallied in several cities ahead of the general elections, scheduled to be held on February 8 next year.
\n\u201cYou learn every day in politics. You need to analyse how he represented Pakistan after becoming the foreign minister. You still say that he\u2019s under training. God willing, you\u2019ll see how he will represent Pakistan after becoming the prime minister.\u201d
\nDuring his interview with Hamid Mir a day earlier, Zardari had said that Bilawal needed to be trained in politics and that being the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), he had the authority to issue tickets to candidates for elections, including Bilawal.
\n\u201cI am the president of \u2018four Ps\u2019 and I allocate election tickets, while son Bilawal is chairman of the PPP,\u201d he said, hours after which Bilawal left for Dubai, but the party rebutted rumours of differences between the father-son duo.
\nKundi acknowledged that the PPPP has the power to issue tickets to the candidates, but claimed that the issuance goes through a process \u2014 shrugging down the impression that it is one man\u2019s decision.
\nBilawal has also been targeting the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the caretaker government, demanding a level playing field. He also called the PML-N \u201cmehangai league\u201d, slamming them for their \u201cfailure\u201d in governance. However, Zardari believes that a confrontational policy is not the solution.
\nKundi defended Bilawal\u2019s stance, saying that special favours were being handed down to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and his party. \u201c[Zardari] might have the same issues, we will discuss it in the CEC tomorrow.\u201d
\nPPP rules out father-son rifts
\nHours before Kundi\u2019s interview, the PPP quashed the rumours of differences between the party\u2019s top brass \u2014 Zardari and Bilawal \u2014 after the former foreign minister left for Dubai.
\nZardari\u2019s, in a hard-hitting with Geo News\u2019 Hamid Mir, had called Bilawal \u201cinexperienced\u201d, \u201cnot fully trained\u201d in politics, and would \u201ctake time\u201d getting up to speed \u2014 fuelling rumours of rifts between them \u2014 as Bilawal had been asking old politicians to rest and allow the new generation to take the lead.
\nIn a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Kundi said the party chairman\u2019s visit to Dubai, an emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was pre-planned.
\n\u201cChairman PPP @BBhuttoZardari has left for Dubai yesterday afternoon according to his schedule after KP visit,\u201d Kundi noted, after media outlets reported that he had left the country \u201call of a sudden\u201d.
\nPPP says Bilawal candidate for PM slot despite Zardari\u2019s \u2018inexperienced\u2019 remarks
\n\u201cRumours regarding differences between Chairman PPP & President @AAliZardari is baseless,\u201d he added.
\nWhile talking to journalists moments after his statement, Murad Ali Shah \u2014 former Sindh chief minister and a top PPP leader \u2014 also said that the visit was routine.
\nTalking to Geo News, PPP Information Secretary Shazia Atta Marri said that Bilawal has left for Dubai on a \u201cprivate visit\u201d and noted that he routinely visits the Gulf nation. \u201cThere\u2019s no specific reason for this visit.\u201d
\nShe also added that Bilawal was scheduled to leave for Dubai after completing his Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) election tour.
\n\u201cBilawal will return to Pakistan on November 30 and address the party\u2019s Foundation Day event,\u201d she clarified.
\nPPP Senator Sherry Rehman wondered why news channels were panicking, calling his visit \u201cexactly as scheduled\u201d.
\nThere seems to be a difference in the narratives between the two top leaders in the run-up to the polls as Bilawal believes there could be interference in the general elections, while Zardari said he sees transparent polls.
\nBilawal has been campaigning across the country and touting his party as the solution to Pakistan\u2019s ills, while also asking \u201cold politicians\u201d to sit back and allow the new generation to lead from the front in the elections.
\nIn his speech in the National Assembly in August, Bilawal had also asked his father and PML-N supremo Nawaz to ensure that politics for the next generation was easier, stressing that they shouldn\u2019t suffer the same fate as their elders.<\/p>\n
\u2018Inappropriate\u2019
\nAnalyst Mazhar Abbas, while speaking on Geo News\u2019 programme \u201cGeo Pakistan\u201d, called Zardari\u2019s comments \u201cinappropriate\u201d and said they damaged Bilawal\u2019s political image.
\n\u201cBut this isn\u2019t the first time that Zardari has done this,\u201d Abbas noted.
\nWhen Bilawal was formally launched in Karachi, and he made some hard-hitting statements against Nawaz and Altaf, Zardari did not take him to a workers\u2019 convention in Lahore the very next month.
\n\u201cOver there, Zardari was asked about Bilawal. In response, he said Bilawal was inexperienced and a child. It was surprising as this happened when he was being launched.\u201d
\nAbbas raised concerns that no one might take Bilawal \u2014 the country\u2019s youngest foreign minister \u2014 \u201cseriously\u201d as his father had raised questions on his credibility.
\n\u201cWho will take him seriously in his next rallies?\u201d Abbas asked. The analyst said Bilawal also wants a level-playing field within his own party.
\nHe recalled that Aitzaz Ahsan, a former PPP leader, had in 2015 said that people of old age should sit on the sidelines and allow Bilawal to lead, noting that even if he does make mistakes, he will learn over time.
\nAll of the Bhuttos […] you should take a look at their ages when they were martyred. Maybe Bilawal is talking in historical context,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cYou learn every day in politics,\u201d PPP\u2019s top leader insists, saying one person does not make party\u2019s decision The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has clarified that its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, is still the party\u2019s candidate for the prime ministership despite his father, PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, believing he is \u201cinexperienced\u201d. \u201cOur party\u2019s chairman is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-370114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n