Veer
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ISLAMABAD:
You know the politicking season has begun when the opposition holds charged rallies, hurls blatant accusations at the ruling party, and the otherwise sidelined smaller parties start appearing in the political limelight.
The anti-government campaign by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), it appears, has sent the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) into high gear, securing partners for the next general elections.
The PPP, according to a source within the party, has decided to work on seat adjustment with its coalition partners, the PML-Quaid (PML-Q) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), in the next elections.
The PML-Q is already in alliance with government, despite reservations of some of its senior members and the emergence of a new breakaway group that has followed the footsteps of the party’s ‘Likeminded’ faction, headed by Senator Salim Saifullah Khan.
The new breakaway group emerged after the PML-Q joined the federal cabinet and five dissenting senators, including Jamal Khan Leghari, Naeem Chattha, Gulshan Saeed, Tariq Azeem Khan and Syed Javed Ali, announced their decision to sit on the opposition benches.
In Punjab, the PML-N has already joined hands with Q League’s Likeminded faction.
The JUI-F, on the other hand, parted ways with the PPP at the center after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sacked their minister for science and technology, Azam Khan Sawati, on disciplinary grounds. The party, however, is still PPP’s coalition partner in Balochistan.
The PPP would go for seat adjustment with the JUI-F in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the next elections, in an effort to contain the PML-N in these two provinces, the source said.
Given the “successful” coalition with the PML-Q, the PPP leadership believes “it is important to continue this coalition through a seat adjustment formula in the future,” the source added.
When contacted, Senator Ismail Buledi of JUI-F said future partnership depends on the PPP leadership since his party had no concerns regarding seat adjustments in the future.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 22nd, 2011.