ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari urged PPP workers on Friday to rededicate themselves to promoting the party’s political ideology.

Addressing party leaders and office-bearers from Punjab at the Zardari House, he said: “I ask you to go into the cities, villages and remote areas of Punjab and all other provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, holding aloft the party banner, and re-assert its pristine credentials as a progressive and liberal party of the poor and downtrodden.”

The delegation led by Punjab PPP chief Manzoor Wattoo included former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf.

According to Mr Zardari’s spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar, he said the PPP was a progressive, liberal and democratic party that would vigorously pursue its liberal agenda and not permit any group or party to foist its political ideology on the nation through bullet behind the facade of religion.

“The former president asked the party workers to reach out to the labourers, workers and peasants to reassure them that the party will never abandon them in their struggle for their right to have decent work and also a rightful place in society.”

He said the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto had waged a lifelong struggle for the rights of the working class. “The party derived its strength from the workers who are the backbone of any society.”

Mr Zardari said that despite obvious manipulations in last year’s elections the PPP had accepted their results so that democracy continued to flourish and non-democratic forces did not get an opportunity to derail the entire system.

He said politicians had provided an excuse to the undemocratic forces to intervene and hijack political power in the past and this must not be allowed to happen again.

However, not destabilising the system should not be taken to mean that the party should abandon its political and democratic role to keep a check on the excesses and misdoings of the government, which must be challenged, exposed and rectified, he said.

Mr Zardari, who is the PPP’s co-chairman, said 2014 was a critical year and the direction and thrust of political and security transition taking place in Afghanistan would have a serious impact on Pakistan. “We must be watchful of what is happening around us and play our role as a vibrant political party capable of rising to the emerging challenges.”

Meanwhile, disgruntled PPP leaders Safdar Abbasi and his wife Naheed Khan announced that a new party faction, the PPP-Workers, would strive to restore what they called the lost identity of the party in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Mr Abbasi said at a press conference that he would soon go to the Election Commission to get registered the PPP-W.

He said the workers had been neglected in the other provinces, while in Sindh the party had been hijacked by anti-PPP elements. He said the PPP had suffered an unprecedented defeat in the last elections because its workers had not supported Mr Zardari and his party.

“We will provide a platform to the PPP workers to unite again.”

He said his party would contest the local government elections jointly with another party called the Pakistan Patriotic Movement.