Where there’s smoke there’s fire and it is beginning to seem that there is some weight after all in assertions made in the local press about cracks emerging within the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) alliance. For one thing, it doesn’t exactly reflect the kind of iron clad unity that PDM leaders claim to possess when senior members from constituent parties take jibes at each other on social media and at press conferences. For another, there’s just too much to suggest that rumours about PML-N being a little apprehensive about the Senate leadership going to PPP, which means former president Asif Zardari, in case PDM candidates won were true.
You could feel the frustration in PML-N leader Talal Chaudhary’s tweet as he wondered if PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto enjoyed the role of the ‘neutral establishment’ in the recently concluded elections for Senate chairman and deputy chairman. That Talal chose to go public with his thoughts, instead of floating them in private PDM meetings, was enough to show that PML-N believed that the result was somehow fudged and, in sheer frustration, was taking it out on the PPP because Yousaf Gilani claimed, just before the Senate polls, that the establishment was indeed neutral in this instance at least.
So it was natural for Bilawal to be presented a nicely timed question about this issue at his press conference not long after PTI followers started blindly sharing Talal’s tweet. And it was also quite natural for Bilawal to want to pay Talal back in kind and the PPP chairperson responded by mentioning the words ‘tanzeem sazi’ in his reply; a clear reference to the incident that made Talal popular, rather unpopular, for all the wrong reasons when he was roughed up outside a female colleague’s house for what can only be described as inappropriate behaviour, allegedly by her brothers.
Also, the fact that Bilawal didn’t just leave it there but went on to remind Talal Chaudhary, through the press conference of course, that he understood elections well enough not to need too much advice from the outside and that ensuring neutrality during the process sometimes took a lot of sacrifices. And that, without a doubt, was meant to score the all-important point that PPP has fought harder and longer than PML-N for democracy and all that.
There’s more, of course. Former PM Nawaz Sharif’s speech about elements in the establishment threatening Maryam Nawaz caused quite a stir just the other day and clearly put the opposition in an awkward position. It also seems to have made certain party insiders feel that the leadership’s antics were going to leave PML-N isolated and PPP was likely to gain most from the alliance by cementing its hold on the upper house of parliament. That explains the mysterious cancelled votes in the election for the chairman far better than some of the theories doing the rounds.
The sudden return of Shahbaz Sharif to the picture could also have made a difference. While the elder Sharif has clearly thrown down the gauntlet and isn’t likely to want to settle for anything less than Imran Khan’s departure from the scene, it could be that the younger Sharif, along with other members of the party’s old guard, wasn’t too keen on giving PPP such an open field so easily.
So there is quite clearly a tug of war of sorts with PDM. The alliance had been losing steam since the unimpressive Lahore jalsa not too long ago. But its fortunes were buoyed once again by Yousaf Gilani’s victory from the Islamabad seat in the Senate election. Now, though, with PTI managing to pull a small miracle, ensuring victory for its candidates as well as causing the PDM alliance to rupture, there seems little for the opposition to fall back on other than its march on the capital later this month.
All this is not to say that the government is out of the woods just yet or its trouble are by any means over. It continues to struggle with issues relating to below-par performance and people are not very happy with things, especially prices, at this time. Still, the opposition’s march isn’t likely to trouble the government too much. PDM is already losing momentum and now the next argument that is most likely to be triggered inside the alliance is just who will do what to manage the march and, most importantly, who will spend most of the money to make it happen. With the taste of defeat in the election for Senate chairman and deputy chairman still fresh in their mouths, and the march unlikely to unseat the government, there’s a good chance for more intra-PDM disputes like the one between Bilawal and Talal.
