Political watchers are sceptical of the 10-point manifesto that Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari unveiled at a public gathering honouring the death anniversary of his mother, the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.
All they are is empty promises. Naveed Hussain, chief editor of The Express Tribune, made the comment during an appearance on the Express News political talk show “Experts,” hosted by Dua Jamil. Hussain described it as a calculated move to deceive voters once more.
“The country is in an economic mess because the PPP and PML-N have switched positions in power every seventy-six years,” he remarked. Since the nation need economic stability to provide free power, raise salaries by 100%, and increase budgetary allocations for health and education, Hussain thinks Bilawal’s pledges are unrealistic.
“Do you really believe that a political dispensation gaining power in this fraudulent election could bring about the political stability necessary for economic revival?”
Sadly, he felt the country’s political factions still hadn’t grown from their mistakes. He made the following statement: “In 2018, the economy was wrecked by manipulating the electoral process in favour of PTI. All other political parties agitated the brazen political engineering throughout the tenure of Imran Khan.” These same parties are now being used as pawns in a political game to remove a democratic force from power.
Bilawal launched a political attack on the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which Hussain criticised, saying that the PPP shares Bilawal’s lack of concern for democracy in Pakistan. He made the point that Bilawal’s party had also supported several contentious laws that the PDM administration had shoved through parliament in its last months in office.
Because young Pakistanis are politically savvy and won’t fall for hollow promises, he said the PPP should propose an economic restoration plan.
Citing Asif Ali Zardari’s remarks implying that Bilawal is still receiving political training, Faisal Husain, Chief of the Express News Bureau in Karachi, expressed worries on Bilawal’s political maturity. “Since he is still in training, how can you believe what he says?” Hussain spoke.
He compared the PPP platform to Imran Khan’s earlier campaign pledges and cast doubt on the practicality of the planned programmes. According to Amir Ilyas Rana, the chief of the Express News Bureau in Islamabad, the PPP could have executed the points of their manifesto in Sindh during their fifteen years in power had they really intended to do so.
Decisions cannot be made without the agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he brought out as a dependency. Rana used previous elections to make the case that Pakistan’s history could have turned out differently if the 1977 elections (except from Balochistan) had not been rigged while PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in power.
According to Ayaz Khan, Group Editor of the Daily Express, Bilawal has begun to criticise the PML-N and Imran Khan rather than Zardari. He called free power pledges “lollipops for voters” and said the economy needed to focus on the fundamentals.
According to Mohammad Ilyas, the chief of the Express News bureau in Lahore, there are concerns about the manifesto’s implementation schedule and feasibility. He warns against using meaningless slogans that may not be realised in the allotted time.
With experienced political observers casting doubt on the PPP’s ten-point manifesto, it is clear that the party needs a more comprehensive and tangible strategy for economic revival if it wants to win over an electorate that is becoming more politically conscious.
