ISLAMABAD – Apart from the revelations by whistleblower website WikiLeaks and the bickering between coalition partners that shook the country’s political arena in December, the country political landscape maintained its status quo during 2010.
The passage of the 18th Amendment by parliament in April was the major political development of the year, which not only appeased the enraged PML-N, as it removed the third-time bar on becoming prime minister, and also transferred a number of crucial powers from the president to the prime minister.
In the last month of 2010, the partition of the JUI-F from the ruling coalition raised political temperature across the country, and set the rumour mills in motion.
On December 14, JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman announced that the party had decided to quit the coalition government. Just a few days later, Fazl demanded the president send Gilani packing to save the country’s democratic order.
MQM, the fourth major party in parliament and an uncomfortable coalition partner of the PPP, also pulled its ministers out from the federal cabinet on December 27 when the PPP leaders were mourning Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
The MQM announced that it was not quitting the government, just leaving Gilani’s cabinet to register its protest over poor governance, corruption and mismanagement.
To maintain pressure on the major opposition party, the PML-N, as well as the MQM, the PPP engaged the PML-Q in power-sharing talks, but many open and clandestine meetings between the top-command of both parties changed nothing on the ground.
The PML-Q unification bloc in Punjab did not budge an inch from its unflinching support to the Sharifs and the ever changing political dynamics and compulsions at the centre barred the PML-Q to become part of the coalition government, either in the province or at the Centre.
On October 1, former president Pervez Musharraf announced to join politics and formally launched his party, the All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), in London. However, he failed to lure any prominent leader from his self-created PML-Q.
Sidelined leaders of the PML-Q likeminded, PML-Zia and Sheikh Rashid’s Awami Muslim League tried to make inroads into the PML-N and initiated a drive for the unification of all PML factions, but their overambitious move landed nowhere.
PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif also wrote a letter to PPP Co-chairman President Asif Ali Zardari in November, proposing a number of suggestion for improving governance and checking mounting corruption.
In response, President Zardari sent a letter to the PML-N leader in December, assuring him that the government was mindful of the issues and were taking steps to reform the system.
The Pakistan Muslim League-N also launched its chapter in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and withdrew its decades-old support for the Muslim Conference, saying the conference had de-tracked from its principles and was playing into the hands of military dictators.
