If the outcome of the meetings Bilawal Bhutto Zardari held in Islamabad over the past week are anything to go by, the Pakistan Peoples Party is in dire straits.

The young chairman arrived in the capital last week, on the heels of law enforcement against senior PPP leaders in Sindh, to see what shape the party’s organisational structure in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was in.

What he found was a party disorganised: widespread discontent among party leaders, internal strife and a general pessimism about the party’s future.

Several party leaders that Dawn spoke to agreed; as long as Bilawal remained in the shadow of his father and this aunt, Faryal Talpur, and did not allow genuine party workers to get close to him, “we are doomed”. A senior office-bearer said, “Mr Zardari has played his innings and now he must take a back seat.”

In Punjab, for example, the biggest fear party leaders shared with Bilawal was the increasing popularity of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). Everyone agreed that this was hurting PPP interests in the province in a big way. But even there, Bilawal couldn’t offer district-level office-bearers any hope. “Give me some time to address your grievances,” was all they got from him.

He was not alone. In June of this year, the last time the party met in the capital, it was Asif Ali Zardari who co-chaired party meetings with his son. With Mr Zardari currently in London, it fell to his sister Faryal Talpur to watch over the party scion.

But Ms Talpur’s presence notwithstanding, a number of party leaders did speak their heart, detailing how the party was being mismanaged by the current leadership. But most did not vent and bade their time.

One party leader from central Punjab was quite blunt. “It’s the people sitting on your left and right who are responsible for our rout in the province,” he said, point blank.

At one meeting at Zardari House, the PPP chairman was asked by an old party guard if “the party leadership is at all interested in reviving itself in Punjab”. He maintained that the party’s central leadership had been absent from the province since the 2013 general elections. The situation could only be salvaged if Bilawal himself traveled to Lahore more regularly. Otherwise, he said, “It will be too late for the party.”

Bilawal also had no answer, when at one point, he was asked about the whereabouts of former MNA Rukhsana Bangash, who was managed the Presidency during Mr Zardari’s term. Similar queries were also made about Farzana Raja, the former chairperson of the multi-billion rupee Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). According to party sources, both have left for the US.

Bilawal was also at a loss for words when a Peoples Youth leader asked what good former interior minister Rehman Malik was doing for the party in these trying times.

But perhaps the most telling item on the agenda of these meetings was the one that was conspicuous by its absence. When Bilawal was trying to figure out how to salvage the party in Punjab, his father could be heard loudly protesting the arrest of his confidant, Dr Asim Hussain, from safer shores. Dr Hussain’s arrest and its fallout were not brought up once during the meetings in Islamabad.

Instead, party leaders, particularly from Lahore, Gujrat and Nankana, spoke harshly against what they called the “dollar mafia” or “so-called technocrats”, who had been preferred over PPP loyalists in recent years and had cost the party dearly. “Political parties survive on the basis of their ideologies, but unfortunately ours has been sidelined,” remarked another old party hand.

A senior party leader, who is actively engaged with the party’s reorganisation efforts in Punjab, told Dawn that Bilawal was still transitioning into the driver’s seat it would take some time for him to fully take the reins of the party.

“Reviving the PPP in Punjab will not be easy; in fact it becomes more and more challenging by the day, as the PTI is fast emerging as a potent force. But, the consensus inside the party is that only when Bilawal steps out of the shadows of this father and his aunt and fully assumes charge, will the party have a chance to stage a comeback,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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