National Peoples Party

The National Peoples Party (NPP) (Urdu: نيشنل پیپلز پارٹی) is a political party in Pakistan most active in the province of Sindh and southern parts of Punjab. It was founded in 1986 by Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi after falling out with Benazir Bhutto and leaving her Pakistan Peoples Party.^[1]

In the 2008 Pakistani general elections the party managed to win only one seat in the National Assembly. Ghulam Mustafa's son Ghulam Murtaza Khan Jatoi won election in NA-211 Naushahro Feroze-I, holding the seat won in 2002 elections by Dr. Abdul Ghaffar Khan Jatoi under the National Alliance banner. The party also won 3 provincial seats, all in the Sindh province.

Formation

When the party was founded in 1986, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi brought a number of political heavyweights from all over the country under the National Peoples Party banner. Among them were former PPP stalwarts and Punjab Chief Ministers Ghulam Mustafa Khar and Hanif Ramay, former federal ministers S.M. Zafar and Hamid Raza Gilani, Malik Hamid Sarfraz, Nawab Ghaus Bux Raisani, Kamal Azfar, Mian Sajid Pervaiz, Nafees Siddiqui, Rana Muhammad Hanif Khan, Akhtar Hussain Shah, Rabbani Khar and Aftab Shah Gilani. An attractive manifesto was prepared and the party was expected to shoot into prominence in no time due to the declining popularity of the Peoples Party at the time.

IJI Coalition

In September 1988, the newly-formed NPP, the center-right Pakistan Muslim League headed by Muhammad Khan Junejo, and the religio-political Jamaat-e-Islami headed by Qazi Hussain Ahmad along with six other political parties formed an anti-PPP coalition called Islami Jamhoori Ittehad or simply IJI. It was believed that Pakistan Army's intelligence agency, the ISI, under Lt Gen Hamid Gul, had a major role in the formation of IJI, as the army was always at odds with the left-leaning PPP.

The 1988 elections were still won by PPP but with a thin majority. However, only 20 months into office, the PPP government was dismissed by then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on corruption charges, and IJI won the next elections comfortably leading Nawaz Sharif from IJI to be the next Prime Minister. The coalition ended in 1993, when major chunk of IJI became PML (Nawaz).

Founding National Alliance

For 2002 general elections, NPP joined the pro-Musharraf government's loose political coalition, the National Alliance. The other alliance members were Millat Party, Sindh Democratic Alliance and Sindh National Front. The alliance won 16 out of 342 seats, mainly in the interior Sindh and lower Punjab region, or 4.78% of the total votes.^[2]

Merger and separation with PML

In May 2004, various PML factions and other political parties including National Alliance merged with the PML-Q to form a united Pakistan Muslim League (PML).^[3] However, the understanding didn't last long and NPP disconnected from the ruling PML and contested the 2008 elections on a separate platform.

The party won won three seats in the 2008 elections in the Sindh Provincial Assembly and 1 National Assembly seat. an additional National and one Provincial Assembly seat is disputed and a election petition is pending in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

See also

• List of political parties in Pakistan
• Pakistan Peoples Party
• Politics of Pakistan

The Party is also represented in the Senate of Pakistan

References

1. ^ Crossette, Barbara,"Election Wednesday; After Zia, Pakistan Takes Well To Politics", The New York Times, November 13, 1988
2. ^ Hasan Mansoor. "The pathology of military democracy: Manufacturing a government in Sindh" Himal South Asia, February 2003 report
3. ^ Ashraf Mumtaz. "Parties to inform EC about merger with PML" Dawn Newspaper, May 20, 2004