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 On 23 April 2011, the PPP moved to clinch the deal with PML-Q as its new coalition partner. The occasion was the wedding of the son of the PML-Q boss Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. The rumour was that Chaudhry Sahib was asking for six ministries plus speakership of the National Assembly and some adviser positions. The PPP was willing and the project was a ‘national government’ on the eve of the 2011-12 Budget which will oppose the gathering ‘revolution’ under Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf busy doing ‘dharna’ against the NATO supply trucks.
The voice of dissent from rebels within a fragmented PML-Q was heard too, but the agreed ministries may douse the flames of these firebrands subjecting the PPP to routine diatribes, meaning that leaders like Amir Muqam and old PPP rebel Makhdoom Saleh Hayat will be plied with attractive portfolios. It was first learned that secretary general Mushahid Hussain, sharp in his rhetoric against the PPP, was opposed to the deal, but he was quite mild in his attitude at the wedding, hobnobbing with Aitzaz Ahsan who himself was on board the ‘reconciliation’ train.
Will the PML-Q complete the process of this new interface with the PPP? Some observers think that the ‘deal’ will lose Chaudhry Shujaat around 25 MNAs like the irreconcilable Marvi Memon. At the same time they are encouraging the speculation that the PPP has actually put the PML-Q on the spot after luring away 25 of its MNAs with blandishments that Muslim Leaguers of all stripes are historically vulnerable to. The PML-Q has 54 seats in the National Assembly, more than the other PPP partners MQM and JUI-F put together – with JUI-F helplessly ducking out for good with its 13 seats because of the challenge it is facing from the Taliban.
The Chaudhry wedding was not attended by the Unification PML-Q cohabiting, some say against the law, with the PML-N in Punjab. The rump party is also faced with revolt from the Hamkhyal (Like-Minded) Group at the centre, but it appears that the logic of ministries will prevail and the PPP will get the numbers it wants to survive the Budget session when it will be required to show a simple majority.
The ‘deal’ has put a number of players under pressure. The PML-N, for the first time showing internal cracks over policy, is the hardest hit because the PML-Q will try to recover its popular support in Punjab from its locus of new power in Islamabad. The MQM, also under pressure, might hover for a while before rejoining the cabinet, this time relying on its familiar Musharraf-era warmth with the Chaudhrys.
There will be some ‘adjustment pains’ for the PML-Q - which shares the PML-N’s deep antipathy for the PPP - after which an uneasy partnership is on the cards made much fun of by the TV anchors who don’t favour even an opposition that looks ‘friendly’. The PML-Q splinter in Lahore stricken with the ‘urge to merge’ with the PML-N will form the battery of abuse in the talkshows, and much scorn will be heaped on the Chaudhrys whose clan leader Chaudhry Zahur Elahi, they will say, was killed by the PPP.
On the other hand, the PPP will take in stride the quip made by Zardari on the ‘q’ contained in the party’s name when he called it Qatil League. Mushahid Hussain will rejoice in his punning ability content to dance on the margins of the deal. Meanwhile, the rumoured new IJI being formed to oust PPP from power might help only to hurt the rightwing PML-N vote in Punjab.
The PML-Q was to form some kind of partnership with the PPP when Benazir decided to return to Pakistan in 2007. Musharraf was to preside over this arrangement, but he fell from power in a quick succession of events; and Zardari looked to the PML-N as his partner. Pakistani politicians are not all bad, but too many of them hate one another and factionalise themselves into ineffective pawns that facilitate the systemic hiccups that hurt the country. The bitterness the leaders manage to produce at the top often ends in activists killing one another at the grassroots level.
The Chaudhrys and the Sharifs were never a good fit inside the PML-N. They had their feuds, with the Chaudhrys taking the back seat in the party in recognition of Nawaz Sharif’s better hold on Lahore. Media baron Majid Nizami, who thought the two clans could be made to reunite to reassert the power of the PML-N, was bitterly disappointed when the Sharifs refused to accept the Chaudhrys back.
But the two Muslim Leagues continue to share their intense conservatism. The new dimension to Nawaz Sharif in 2006 in London was his change of heart towards the PPP, India and the army. (That it was superficial was proved by his policy tilt towards the terrorists of South Punjab.) The London dimension however was missing in the Chaudhrys. They are visceral about India, don’t hate the army too much, and are in the Islamic embrace more firmly than the Sharifs. In fact, Chaudhry Shujaat has often wrung his hands most vigorously while singing his mea culpa over the affair of Lal Masjid.
When the Joint Investigative Team (JIT) declared that the self-confessed killers under trial – Nasrullah, Qari Ismail, Ibadur Rehman, Hasnayn Gul and Muhammad Rafaqat – had stayed at Madrassa Haqqaniya in Nowshehra before arriving at Rawalpindi to participate in the killing of Benazir, Chaudhry Shujaat quickly went on record saying the madrassa was blameless. How did he know?
Chances are that the PPP will not only pass the budget but might even survive till the next elections while riding with PML-Q. The reason is their joint interest in trimming the PML-N vote-bank in Punjab. Thus the partnership planned by Musharraf – and much disliked then by Chaudhry Shujaat – might actually come into being within the survival dynamic of democracy. The PPP-PML-Q deal gains a moral dimension in the midst of increasingly unreliable rumours that the ISI is said to be orchestrating a ‘revolutionary’ IJI-like alliance under the firebrand anti-American leadership of Imran Khan.
The PML-Q faction in South Punjab is willing to come on board and thus further debilitate the Hamkhayal faction if the PPP will give them their Seraiki Province, at the cost of another PML-Q splinter led by Muhammad Ali Durrani who wants to revive the old Bahawalpur State into a province side by side with the Seraiki Province. The ‘southern’ feeling in Punjab is eroding the PML-N edge too, hurting its policy of winning the next election with the help of the terrorist jihadi organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba.
The rebellion of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and his acceptance of more provinces in Punjab will have to be tackled by Nawaz Sharif once he has recovered from a bout of ill-health. The old IJI had its backbone in the PML-N. Will the PML-N swing back to its old moorings within the military establishment? Which means that Imran Khan will have to be dumped by the ISI. Anything can happen.
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