LAHORE:
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday was re-elected as president of the Popular Party of Pakistan (PPP) for a period of four years, while Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was re-elected as president of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q).
The PPP held surveys within the party at the Central Secretariat of the Federal Capital.
Humayun Khan was elected as general secretary of the party for four years, while Nadeem Afzal Gondal (Chan) as secretary of information for the same period.
Similarly, Amna Piracha was elected as secretary of Finance for four years. PPP officers were elected according to the constitution of the party.
Who won and when the elections were carried out, until the news were reported in the media, almost all the leaders of the Punjab party that the Express PAkGazette spoke greatly seemed unconscious of the intra party.
According to the official notification, the elections were held in Islamabad. However, several high -level leaders of the party, at least Punjab, did not realize the development. Those who knew said they had learned through social networks. None of the leaders could say who the candidates were or if the winners had faced any opposition or were chosen without opposition. Almost all expressed their disappointment for not having been informed about the date of the elections.
Nadeem Afzal Chan, who was among the winners, told The Express PAkGazette that he had presented his nomination documents. However, when asked how he learned about the results of the elections, he admitted that he was not completely aware. When asked if the elections were disputed or if all the candidates were chosen without opposition, he said he did not have that information. “I will have to visit the party’s office to find out what really happened,” he said. He added that electoral rolls had been prepared, including district lists and assigned voter numbers.
A main leader of the Punjab party, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was not aware of the intraparticle elections and their result, learning about them only during the phone call. He recalled that some time ago, the media had reported the formation of an electoral commission of three members and that the president of the party had led the elections in five weeks. However, no timeline or schedule was communicated, he said. While the president being re -elected several times was not unusual, he added, the “absence of adequate elections for other key positions marked a new minimum for the PPP.”
He said that the Secretary of Newly elected information, Nadeem Afzal Chan, had done everything possible to become the president of Central Punjab, but the president of PPPP, Asif Ali Zardari, vetoed this recommendation from the president of the Bilawal Bhutto Zardari party. The leader explained that Zarari’s decision was based on Chan’s “opportunistic behavior”, particularly his movement to the PTI when the PPP was in a difficult position. Despite this, the president of the party decided to appoint Chan as Secretary of Information.
He also noted that the president seemed to honor those who had changed loyalties, as evidenced by his speech at the House of the governor of Lahore, where people like Manzoor Chaudary, Aitzaz Ahsan and Nadeem Afzal Chan were invited to sit on stage with the president, while members of the Loyal Party and the superior leaders were relegated to the seats between the workers.
