It was pretty clear ever since opposition parties stitched together the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) that the matter of resignations from assemblies would be the true litmus test of the alliance. And when push came to shove, and it was time for PDM to give shape to its grand designs and plans, it was after all the resignations that all but proved to be its undoing. No doubt Nawaz Sharif and PML-N would feel bitterly disappointed by all this because they feel, and very rightly so, that they’ve been played a duplicitous hand by PPP, especially former president Asif Zardari.
Earlier PPP very smartly kept kicking the can down the road whenever the resignations came up, and all the while milked the alliance for all that it could deliver to it. And once all parties of the movement were used to put Yousaf Gilani in the Senate and there was nothing further to be squeezed from it without actually tendering the resignations, Zardari pulled the plug on the whole thing by linking the notices with Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan. That, as far as PML-N is concerned, at least, puts the cart before the horse, which means that the element of unity that kept PDM together so far has now been called into question.
Yet now that the worst has happened, from PDM’s point of new, it seems there have been some signs to suggest that PML-N could smell something wrong around the time of the elections of the Senate chairman and deputy chairman. That would certainly lend weight to the argument, doing the rounds ever since, that seven PML-N members deliberately wasted their votes to keep Zardari from having the cake and eating it too.
As for PPP, it couldn’t possibly have asked for a better ride with the PDM. The party has been able to revive its sagging fortunes, now has a privileged position in the Senate, and there’s also an outside chance of the Supreme Court validating the dismissed seven votes, if it gets to that, so there might be still more to cash in. And once he felt that this ride was coming to an end for PPP, at least as far as quantifiable political advantages are concerned, Zardari simply put his cards on the table and that, so to speak, was that.
To be objective there was never really a chance of the PPP agreeing to the resignations. Unlike PML-N or JUI-F, which have no stakes in the system, PPP runs the Sindh government and sees no advantage whatsoever in throwing it away just to feed Nawaz Sharif’s anger and bitterness. It was, also, not very realistic to expect PPP and PML-N to work together for too long. They have tried it a number of times in the past, even signed landmark agreements, yet always fell out at the end. And then, as everybody remembers no doubt, they tried to outdo each other in terms of filing corruption cases against each other.
The only thing that got them together even for this long was their one-point, single-minded hatred for Imran Khan and his government simply because the new prime minister has made it something of a mission to make them pay for all their alleged corruption. Yet even in that, while their destination might be the same they seem to prefer very different paths towards it. Both PML-N and JUI-F made much noise about the resignations earlier as well, but then they saw some reason in Zardari’s argument of pressuring the government in parliament, and liked what they saw after the Zimni elections and especially what transpired in the Senate poll.
But once the elections for Senate chairman and deputy chairman were lost and there was simply nothing to do but build anticipation for the long march through mass resignations, there was only one thing left for PPP to do. It’s not surprising that Nawaz Sharif has started feeling unwell again in London. There seems to be a clear pattern in that habit as well. For he seems fine when he needs to deliver devastating speeches against specific members of state institutions, but needs to see the doctor whenever he is asked to come back to the country; to lead his own party if not to serve out his prison sentence.
Of what happens next, only one thing can be said with some degree of certainty. And that is that whatever momentum PDM was able to regain after Yousaf Gilani’s victory in the Senate election has now completely dissipated. In fact, you can now expect a fair amount of finger-pointing and blame-tossing within the opposition also. But that doesn’t mean that the PTI government is completely off the hook either. People are still unhappy with many things, especially food price inflation, and will watch its actions and policies very closely. It will, however, not have to deal with a very potent opposition anymore.
