ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Muslim League-N in 2010 kept on wandering from one pole to another in search of its identity as an opposition party or a ruling one while PML-Q made many botched attempts to enter the power corridors with the fractured body.
After posing an aggressive posture in the first quarter of 2010, PML-N succeeded in achieving its goal of getting 18th Amendment bill passed by the parliament in April which removed the constitutional bar in the way of Nawaz Sharif to become a third-time prime minister.
Overall, the PML-N continued its friendly-opposition role and avoided any direct tussle with PPP. Maintaining its image of a pro-independent judiciary party, it voiced for the implementation of the apex court’s verdict on NRO but did not oppose President Zardari over his alleged Swiss accounts.
Apparently, PML-N adopted a friendly role to avoid any attempt by PPP to dislodge or destabilise the Punjab government and also tactfully aborted PPP-PML-Q negotiations for power sharing in the province by keeping a group of PML-Q dissident MPAs affiliated with itself.
PML-N fiercely opposed the RGST bill in and outside the parliament and is still resolute to block its passage from the parliament. The party demanded curb on corruption in national institutions before introducing reforms in the taxation system. Interestingly, ML-N senator Ishaq Dar proposed amendments to the RGST bill in the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, but voted against it in the Senate.
Though PPP is a coalition partner of PML-N in the Punjab, the Sharifs did not give any space to the PPP in the province and all powers remained in the hands of Chief Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif and some of his close confidants from PML-N and the bureaucracy. The Punjab government faced a strong criticism from PPP leaders and its ministers in the provincial cabinet. They also raised the issue before President Zardari, but he silensed them for the sake of reconciliation. The row between Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and the PML-N government watched no downward trend and they kept on trading allegations against each other which sometimes touched violent lines. Provincial Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah’s diatribes were responded by Taseer and Federal Law Minister Babar Awan.
PML-N launched reorganisation in the country. It also set up the party structure in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and its formal launch was announced by Nawaz Sharif on December 26 at a public meeting. PML-N refused to become a part of Muttahida Muslim League (MML) while the efforts of former Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali to woo Nawaz for PML unification ended in fiasco.
Relations between the PML-N and PML-Q also remained bitter in 2010 as the former always considered the latter to be involved in hatching conspiracies to dislodge the Sharif government in the province. Ch Pervaiz Elahi’s tirade against Shahbaz also played a role in widening gulf between the two factions of Muslim League.
Before November 2010, PML-Q was experiencing isolation in the national politics but Federal Law Minister Dr Babar Awan’s meeting with Pervaiz Elahi on November 3 brought the latter’s party back into the political arena. Despite frequent rounds of parleys between PPP and PML-Q for power sharing, no breakthrough has yet occurred.
This was PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who initiated the Muslim League unification move by announcing the merger of his party with Pir Pagara’s PML-F in September, but budged from the move when Pir Pagara accepted PML-Likeminded group as a separate political entity.
PML-Q lost political support and faced tough time in fielding its candidates in by-elections in various constituencies of Punjab. The Chaudhrys faced the challenge of the Likeminded group and failed to woo their MPAs in the Punjab, shattering their dream to form a coalition government in the province with PPP. Differences between the Chaudhrys and Pervez Musharraf grew bitterer due to the latter’s efforts to lure PML-Q leaders and parliamentarians to join his party as the Chaudhrys succeeded in barring the party leaders from joining APML.
