President Asif Ali Zardari meets angry Zulfiqar Mirza

In order to mend fences, President Asif Ali Zardari has paid an unscheduled visit to the residence of former Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, leaving the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) as well as others political parties surprised.

According to the media reports, the president stayed there for over half-an-hour, inquiring health of Zulfiqar Mirza’s wife, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza.

It is vital to mention here that she had recently returned from the US after a medical check-up.

Although there wasn’t any handout issued to the media about the development, reports claimed that it was a social call by President Zardari to mend the fences between the two friends.

Mirza had resigned from the Sindh cabinet after developing sharp differences over policy matters vis-a-vis PPP’s main coalition partner MQM, became a topic of speculation among political analysts.

Political pundits believe that the abrupt development is more than a social call because of an intensifying tiff between the PPP and Sindhi nationalist parties over the recently promulgated local government ordinance, the SPLGO.

Recently, the nationalist parties have launched a phased campaign to force the government to withdraw the ordinance.

They were of the opinion that Dr Zulfiqar Mirza after parting ways with the government had gained popularity among Sindhi nationalists and now President Zardari might have asked him to use his good offices to persuade them to negotiate with PPP leaders to sort out their reservations on the new local government system.

The insiders of the party considered this meeting as part of President Zardari’s move to bring back angry leaders into the party fold before the general polls.

Mirza’s resignation damaged the party position and the former home minister was emerging as a Sindhi nationalist leader and gaining popularity among the people of Sindh.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 20 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.