PPP's lack of ambition.

Byline: Arifa Noor

SHORTLY after the 2013 election, Nusrat Javeed, a very senior journalist, wrote a column in an Urdu paper about the various parties' election campaigns. He described the PPP's campaign as one based on brand fatigue - in advertising, this phrase is used to describe a message which is so repetitive that it tends to get ignored.

It was a column that was hard to forget and still is six years later. It is one that came to mind in the run-up to the party's jalsa in Rawalpindi last week. The PPP turned it into a momentous occasion and it was. Ever since Benazir Bhutto's assassination, her party has always marked her death anniversary in her hometown. This was the first time they ventured out and into Punjab.

In keeping with the occasion, the party even ran television ads about the jalsa but after a while these electronic messages seem to blend in with the background, for the message was the same as always. It seemed as if every ad was about the heroism and martyrdom of the party's ruling family. Perhaps, this was a deliberate effort because the jalsa was in memory of Benazir Bhutto's death. But it still brought back the 2013 column about brand fatigue.

This is not to say that her death should not be recognised. Few will disagree that her assassination was a great loss for Pakistan and her party, and that she and her father seem to have taken on saintly attributes for the people of Sindh. But beyond the province, the party may not have a very appealing message in the martyrdom of the Bhuttos.

No one, not even the PPP itself, believes the party wants to win anywhere but Sindh.

It's hard to tell if the party understand this. From the outside, it seems not, because the message has not changed - perhaps because it works in Sindh and the PPP has become rather provincial (or shall one say unambitious) in its approach.

But those who still believe in the PPP argue that the party's real message is not its oft-used rhetoric about its martyrs but roti, kapra aur makaan. And in a country with growing inequality, this message can and will resonate with the people. This is why some economists and politicians, who have worked on the ground, believe that the message has relevance even in Punjab.

If so, the message doesn't seem to be getting across. Not in the media and not in the elections either, where the vote percentage of the PPP in the country's largest province seems to be showing little signs of recovery since the 'heady' days of 2008...

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