News
Monday, May 07, 2012
PML-N’s buzz word: contain PTI for political goodBy Muhammad Akram
LAHORE: Does the PML-N, struggling to capture the centre stage of the country’s politics in the year of general elections, really want to see back of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani - convicted but not out completely - thanks to the confusion all around? The answer is perhaps a ‘no’.
Had the PML-N, the main opposition party with significant presence in parliament and complete control over 60 percent of the country - the province of Punjab that it is ruling for over four years now - been interested in getting the PPP-led ruling coalition down it may have opted for better options than compounding the confusion by creating rumpus in the National Assembly and storming the streets on an issue it failed to convince itself and the others too.
The serious and result-oriented course that was available but the PML-N did not exercise perhaps ostensibly was said to be engaging the PPP government in the legalities of the matter in parliament by moving a reference to the speaker that PM stands disqualified following the court’s short order. The party could have also moved the Supreme Court as it did quite astonishingly and hurriedly in the wake of memo scandal, to seek clarity of the short order pleading that the office of PM cannot be held by a ‘convict’ on the pretext of a not-so-clear an order of the court.
However, nothing of the sort happened and the PML-N chose the path of countering the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, believing that the battle lies with it in the streets and not in parliament with the PPP and its allies.
The party did not opt for the option of moving the SC to get a clearly stated verdict much before the detailed judgement considering that the PTI may take the course as it did quite fruitfully in getting open the Asghar Khan case pertaining to the distribution of funds for the creation of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad to counter the PPP in late 80s.
The second reason was said to be the short-lived marriage of convenience of the party with the deep state on memo scandal where it was made to eat humble pie besides availing nothing but criticism both within and outside the party fold.
The insiders believe that if the party’s moving of the SC in memo case was a result of an understanding between certain leaders of the party with the deep state, the present agitational mode was apparently on the basis of party’s own understanding of the political issue and calculations.
The political enemy is not the PPP but the PTI, which was a direct threat to its support base in its bastion, the central Punjab, as the party has already ruined its political prospects in the southern Punjab for being the only stumbling block in the way of carving out of a new province out of Punjab.
The party is facing a bitter battle in central Punjab with PTI which many in the PML-N believe is turning out to be a replacement from an earlier status of a political spoiler against a PPP-PML-Q combine before its tsunami hit the national political scene in October last year.
Insiders in both the PPP and the PML-N are convinced that the ruling coalition had not much to lose in the case of a harsher detailed judgement in the contempt of court case. Even the stepping down of a PM, ‘tainted’ for PML-N and hero for the PPP, would be of less significance until the time he left the office he had achieved what his party had desired of him, the precious time span it required to pass the rare fifth consecutive yet lucrative budget in an election year before announcement of general elections.
This would be no mean achievement for a government led by a party with simple majority in parliament. This would also pave the way for a rare democratic transition much to the dismay of the deep state bound to see erosion of its say in important matter like the holding of an elections by an interim government of the choice of political forces and an election commission appointed with consensus again by the parliamentary forces.
The observers said a rapprochement between the PPP and the PML-N and between the PPP and the PTI is a possibility but nothing of the sort can be said where there is PML-N and the rest of the political forces whether it be the PTI, the MQM and the PML-Q.
The observers said this is not something, which is ingrained in the politics of the PML-N but the mindset of the individuals, which are controlling and had refused to learn from the changing political realities.
The PTI, said the observers, had shown maturity unlike the PML-N leadership by not succumbing to the temptation of going all-out against the government in the wake of short order of SC.
However, the lessons for the PTI may come to learn from after the general elections, which it might not be able to impress much because of its hodge-podge standing on national issues like the PML-N and unlike the PPP and its allies.
Taking the example of war on terror, said the observers, the PTI may have a far clearer stance than the PML-N but the force that it contains get it close to those harbouring extremism in society than bringing it to normal terms with the world at large and aspiration of common folk for resuming to accept a tribal lifestyle both in religion and social terms.
The PML-N needs to get as clear on national issue such as war on terror as it is clear with Pakistan seeking economic ties with neighbouring India unlike Imran Khan’s PTI which has yet to come out sans ifs and buts on country’s policy vis-à-vis India.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk