Pakistan People’s Party celebrates 51st Foundation Day today

KARACHI: All is set for the countrywide Foundation Day celebrations of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Friday (today), ARY News reported.

The PPP, founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was on November 30th, 1967, ruled Pakistan for five times since its foundation.

The central function of the 51st Foundation Day of the PPP will be held in Sukkur, to be addressed by party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other party leaders.

The delegations of the party workers from all the provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan region will attend the gathering.

The party’s foundation day gathering will be held at Z.A Bhutto Sports Complex Sukkur in afternoon today.

The stage has been set up and the venue has been decorated with party posters and flags with thousands of chairs.

According to local administration strict security arrangements have been made for the gathering.

The party’s co-chairman and former president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, in his message on the eve of 51st Foundation Day of Pakistan Peoples Party, has resolved to follow the principles of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

Asif Ali Zardari said that the PPP reiterates its resolve to keep striving for the rule of law and supremacy of the parliament.

He said that PPP restored the 1973 constitution and made the parliament all-powerful thus realizing the dream of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, gave identity to the people of KP and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Once the most influential and popular political party of Pakistan, however, now restricted to its power base of Sindh province.

Political footprints of PPP on Pakistan

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) remains a consistent electoral player since its foundation in a convention in Lahore on November 30, in 1967.

Since its formation, the PPP has won the general elections five times i.e. in 1970, 1977, 1988, 1993 and 2008.

The PPP dominated the politics of Pakistan during the 1970s, suffered a temporary decline during the military dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq. After the restroation of democracy in 1988, following Zia’s death in a plane crash, virtually a two-party political system emerged, with PPP and Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), an alliance of right leaning political groups (later succeeded by PML-N) as the two major sides.

The party served as the principal opposition to the Musharraf-led government from 1999 to 2008.

After 1965 war with India and the Tashkent declaration to end the war Gen. Ayub Khan’s Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto quit the government on June 16, 1966 as protest against the ceasefire deal.

He chose to found his own political party. The PPP was launched at its founding convention held in Lahore on November 30 – December 01, 1967. At the same meeting, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was elected as its Chairman. Among the expressed goals for which the party was formed were the establishment of an “egalitarian democracy” and the “application of socialist ideas to realize economic and social justice”.

The Party also promised the elimination of feudalism to protect and advance the interests of the peasants.