News
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
PML-N no more hawkish to ‘the power centre’By Muhammad Akram
LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has succeeded in neutralising the security establishment’s ‘hostile’ attitude towards party’s top leadership and that too in the run-up to the general elections likely to be held at the end of this year or early next year, a senior party leader told Daily Times.
The PML-N leader said the kid-brother of party President Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan have played a pivotal role in this regard. In consequence of this major breakthrough for the party, the PML-N had already upped its ante against the PPP in Sindh and Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the urban centres of Punjab, said the PML-N leader on the condition of anonymity.
The party leader said the development did not augur well to the camp of doves in the party, which had been struggling to keep working relationship with the ruling PPP intact and pursuing a political solution to the prevalent deadlock over the appointment of a consensus chief election commissioner and setting up of a caretaker set-up to oversee the next general elections.
The party leader, however, is confident that the party would still like to reach an amicable solution to the aforementioned political matters though at a position of strength believing that the end of hostility between top party leadership and security establishment would help it secure political benefits against a government tormented by various political and security issues.
The PML-N leader was confident that having a level-playing field against new-found potential electoral threat, the PTI, particularly in the urban centres of its bastion Punjab would boost party prospects in the general elections.
He was of the view that the Punjab government-led protest campaign against the federal government on the issue of power outages would continue for a while as the same was aimed at not just keeping the PPP government on the defensive but also the party cadres in election mode.
Another senior party leader from Islamabad, however, was of the view that the PML-N leadership had softened its approach towards the military establishment and not the other way around since the two sides have narrowed down their difference on security as well as in the area of foreign policy.
He said the PML-N has always supported the security establishment’s concerned vis-à-vis country’s security matter, particularly when the PPP is in power and said to have the desire for having a greater independence in policy matters that relates to country’s relationship particularly with United States and India.
The PML-N and the security establishment have convergence on security issues and the recent opening of trade ties between Pakistan and India with the approval of the security establishment was a major area where the PML-N can deliver better than any other political government in the country, said the PML-N leader citing the Lahore Declaration signed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif with his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999. The Lahore Declaration is a milestone agreement between Pakistan and India, which was envisioned by Nawaz Sharif despite being despised by then military leadership under the command of Gen Pervez Musharraf.
The PML-N leader said the party considered the security establishment has got nearer to party’s policy vis-à-vis United States as like the establishment it wanted a relationship with the super power based on mutual respect and not as a client state.
The PML-N is in complete tandem with the security and foreign policy being pursued by the present military leadership, said a PML-N official in Punjab claiming that the convergence of views between the party and the leadership of security establishment would pave the way for removing the remaining misgivings on the questions of striking a balance between the civil-military relations.
He conceded that the softening of PML-N top leadership approach towards the military leadership has much to do with emergence of Imran Khan on national political scene last year with the help of erstwhile leadership of intelligence establishment.
The PML-N leader said the fundamental question before the top party leadership was how to keep pace with the changing political realities and the answer to it was nothing but develop a working relationship with the force that still counted as democracy still a nascent and five-year democratic rule is just a beginning to achieve the goal of establishing its dominance over other state institutions, including the power security establishment.
The PML-N leader said the party’s support to judiciary against a politically elected government has earned it political dividends and it would like to gain more by striking a working relationship with the security establishment which still holds the balance in the fray of country’s politics.
The political observers were of the view that this policy shift in PML-N was overdue particularly after the swaying away of the political tide in Punjab by Imran Khan though allegedly with the help of the country’s intelligence establishment.
The party kept itself reeling between establishing working relationship with the establishment and keeping it at arms length owing to its hard earned democratic credentials by putting its weight behind the present coalition government against the establishment whenever the need arises.
However, said the observers, the PML-N appeared to have open up its door to the policy of rapprochement with the security establishment under pressure from the reported swaying away of its support base by the PTI.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk