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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound has created dissent within the party’s ranks, background interviews with PPP leaders revealed to this correspondent.

Senator Farhatullah Babar announced his resignation from the parliamentary Committee on National Accountability Law in protest against his own party’s U-turn over the issue of across-the-board accountability of everyone, including judges and generals.

When contacted Senator Farhatullah Babar told Business Recorder, “I quit the Committee because my party took a U-turn on the issue of across the board accountability after I had worked so hard in accordance with party policy. If I were to withdraw my proposals and toe the new party position I would have diminished myself. So I resigned from the Committee.”

Answering another question, Babar said, “No. I cannot say that it was a case of running with the hare and hunting with the hound. But I don’t know what persuaded the party to reverse its principled stand and I may never know it. I really don’t want to know.”

PPP spokesman Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed told Business Recorder that “the PPP backed out from its stance as the government had wanted to use his party for its own purpose.”

Asked to confirm what he had said Ahmed said “no, no, the government was not using the PPP but it wanted negotiations.”

He further added that other parties were also not ready to support the legislation.

Zardari supports a certain degree of ambiguity on almost every key matter/policy issue - whether it is a question of siding with the opposition or supporting the government in various matters, background interviews with PPP leaders further revealed.

Party sources said that Asif Ali Zardari may have taken a U-turn on the party’s earlier stance of accountability of judges and generals perhaps to appease the establishment and/or judiciary.

This last minute party decision was also in conflict with what PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stated during a press conference in July 2017 notably that the PPP believes in across the board accountability, including judges and generals. Bilawal Bhutto had also stated that all cases of corruption pending in the Supreme Court, including those of dictators, should be tried and decided without any further delay.

This, sources told Business Recorder on condition of strict anonymity, is sending the message to the workers that the party is not a real opposition force keeping the government under pressure till the next elections.

Additionally, the party’s policy that the PML-N must complete its full five year tenure, is strengthening the party workers perception that Zardari is somehow directly propping up the PML-N government as, come March; the PML-N would have a majority in the Senate.