Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) President Asif Ali Zardari has detached himself from contesting by-elections on a National Assembly seat from Nawabshah, it is reliably learnt.

The last few days have remained shrouded in mystery after it was announced by the PPP leadership that Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto will contest the elections with different election symbols since both were heads of different political parties. A source close to this affair told the Daily Times on anonymity that technically Asif Zardari and Bilawal cannot contest elections on one election symbol.

To settle the issue once and for all, Asif Zardari has also decided to merge PPP and the PPP Parliamentarians, the source informed. The former President has put everything on the back burner having left for the United States to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump on January 20. So far nobody is aware of who will be assigned the task of merging the two parties in the legal team of Zardari, a source said.

The former president decided not to go for the option of by-polls on a National Assembly seat from Nawabshah, but Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto will contest the by-election from Larkana to further learn about the political process of the parliament.

According to the source, Zardari has consulted his close legal aides; Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Latif Khosa and Farooq H Naik regarding the issue of the ‘election symbol’ and the legal team has reached the conclusion that it may create technical problems for the PPP Parliamentarian president.