LAHORE: PPP’s legal team will decide the merger or otherwise of the two parties, the PPP and the PPP-P, before the next general elections.
“I have proposed Constitution of a legal team comprising party’s legal experts to weigh all aspects of the possible merger of the two parties” said PPP’s Secretary General Secretary Sardar Latif Khosa who was confident that the issue of merger would be resolved by the next general elections.
At present, two parallel political organisations of the same party exist simultaneously, only on the papers though. One headed by the father and the other one by the son, the two parties does have a different list of office- bearers, but their controlling authority is the same.
Party men believe that a possible merger would not make any difference as both the parties are currently operating under the direct supervision of Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur.
The PPP-P, now headed by Asif Zardari, is into electoral politics since 2002 under the guidance of mother party, the PPP. The issue of PPP keeping two separate political identities came to limelight a year back when the then president of the PPP-P Makhdoom Amin Fahim was visibly at odds with Asif Ali Zardari over some appointments in his party reportedly made without his consultation.
Khosa said he did not see an immediate merger of the two parties, but hopefully the party’s legal team will resolve this issue at appropriate time.
The matter of ownership of the PPP is subjudice, he told this scribe, adding, that a petition filed by Naheed Khan, former Political Secretary to Benazir Bhutto, claiming to be the rightful heir to this title was still pending in the court for decision.
Secondly, he added, the PPP-P has its representation in the Parliament as well as in the Provincial Assemblies and disbanding this party at this stage may have its legal implications.
 Talking about the rationale behind formation of PPP-P in 2002, Latif Khosa said that it had to be created when the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf through an amendment in Political Parties Order made it binding on every contestant for the National Assembly seat to appear in person before the Returning Officer at the time of filing of his/her nomination papers.
“Since the then Chairman of PPP, Benazir Bhutto, was in exile at that time and feared her prosecution under the military regime on return, it was decided to make a new party with the nomenclature of PPP-P with Amin Fahim as its President,” he maintained.
Asked why Bilawal Bhutto has been designated as patron-in-chief of the PPP and not the Chairman, Khosa replied that when he got this party registered with the Election Commission, Bilawal had not attained the age of 25 which was a legal requirement. “Now he is 27 and qualifies to be the Chairman”.
He said it was only a matter of time that he would be the party Chairman as per will of the slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.
“It has already been decided in a party’s CEC meeting that Bilawal would be Chairman of the party while Asif Zardari would act a Co-Chairman,” he informed.