Zardari makes a poor show as few come to his call

ISLAMABAD: The Iftar-dinner hosted by PPP leader and former President Asif Zardari proved to be an failed attempt to forge an anti-establishment alliance since no noteworthy national political party turned up to attend it. The jumbled gathering was hardly called a political show by any standard. It has exposed the hollowness of the PPP’s leader’s wisdom who attained fame for give and take in every deal.
Highly placed sources told The News that the whole PPP leadership is in the federal capital these days and each and every leader has tried their level best to make the Iftar-dinner gathering an impressive show.
The PPP leaders were assigned to cultivate different leaders to bring them in the gathering but none was prepared to become tool to drag the PPP and its leader out of their political loneliness after June 16’s tirade of Asif Zardari harming the national interests.
The PPP spokespersons kept on changing their stance about the guests. In first place, it was claimed that the Iftar-dinner would be like an all party’s conference (APC) on the political issues confronted by the country. Later they maintained that it is the gathering of allies. At the end it was declared that it was meeting of the opposition parties. All the three were misplaced contentions.
The sources said that the PPP assessed prior to extending invitation through its contacts that the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) or Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would not be available for the gathering. For this reason, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif or any of the federal ministers were not extended invitation.
It was squarely in contrast to the situation three days back when a dinner thrown by the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah in Sindh House was attended by all the federal ministers, ministers of state and members of the Parliament. They were asked to attend it by the PML-N leadership.
The major national political party that attended the Iftar-dinner was the PML-Q of Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and perhaps it was the lone ally of the PPP that was present in the iftar-dinner. Interestingly Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain was among the first leaders who criticised Asif Zardari after his statement of June 16 that has generated the heat.
Shujaat Hussain’s association with the establishment is an open secret. One can hardly believe that he would have attended it without consulting its friends in Rawalpindi. He reportedly advised Asif Zardari in the meeting to withdraw his statement and apologie for what he had said.
Maulana Fazal ur Rehman refrained from joining Zardari in Iftar and stayed away from the main show. He joined him but after the Iftar was over. He joined the consultative gathering and reportedly also endorsed what Chaudhary Shujaat said, the sources said. The MQM was the only party that assured Asif Zardari of its support but without any undertaking since it follows its own schedule, the sources said.