Zardari to work on reorganising PPP

Outgoing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will now concentrate on reorganising his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after it was mauled in the general elections in May.

Zardari would "deeply look into the state of the party and try to use his past and recent experience to remove its weaknesses" after completing his Sep 8, the Dawn newspaper reported Wednesday, quoting party sources.

The PPP could win only 40 seats of the 342-member National Assembly in the general elections.

"Zardari Sahib will give more time and attention to the party and stay mostly in Lahore and Karachi for the purpose," Dawn quoted presidency spokesman and PPP senator Farhatullah Babar as saying.

Babar also rejected reports that Zardari would spend most of his time in Dubai and Britain post his tenure.

Zardari would meet party workers and office-bearera to discuss matters relating to reorganisation of the PPP, according to Babar.

The idea behind this is to prepare the PPP for Pakistan's next general elections, the Dawn report said.

According to the report, Zardari would spend a week in Lahore after relinquishing charge as president.

On Sunday, PPP's Punjab province president Latif Khosa met Zardari and briefed him on the situation in the province given the party's poor show there in the elections.

According to the Dawn report, the PPP's Punjab leadership described some of the decisions made by Zardari as unwise, particularly the appointment of Manzoor Wattoo as provincial head of the party in October 2012.

During Wattoo's leadership, the PPP lost many National Assembly seats it had won in the 2008 general elections.

A PPP leader pointed out that while the party had won 35 National Assembly seats in Punjab in 2008, it could bag only one in the May 2013 polls.

"We agree that we faced the biggest defeat in Punjab because the party leadership had made some mistakes," he was quoted as saying.