Two interesting things about the Friday meeting of the PPPs Central Executive Committee (CEC), convened to ratify the proposal to reduce the federal cabinets size, were the presence of Aitzaz Ahsan and the announcement of the decisions by Jahangir Badr. Both are old timers with unblemished records of loyalty to the party. The presence of the first in the CEC meetings had been less than regular since 2008 while despite holding the office of the Secretary General of the party the latter had by and large been sidelined by a team of pushing newcomers.
That it was decided to consult Mian Nawaz Sharif also besides the coalition partners over having a lean and mean cabinet is significant for this underlines the PPPs keenness to maintain the recently initiated bonhomie with the main opposition party. Again, while Prime Minister Gilani phoned all heads of allied parties including the PML(N), President Zardari cared to talk on phone only to two i.e. Mian Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Earlier, it was a regular practice, almost a matter of protocol, for the President to telephone MQM chief Altaf Hussain on such occasions. Zardari being the main decision maker in the party, the neglect could not have been by chance. As Roosevelt once put it, In politics nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
A newspaper report tells of Zardari having told the CEC that a permanent establishment was working parallel to the government with the agenda to destabilise every government of the day. If this is the Presidents well-considered view, there is all the more reason to have good working relations with the opposition and refrain from opening unnecessary fronts. The PPP-led government wasted a whole year in confrontation with judiciary which led the PML(N) to say goodbye to the cabinet The size of the cabinet which was quite reasonable had subsequently to be enlarged to accommodate smaller parties till it became a liability. Among the allies, he had to rely on are those who are now talking about revolution instead of cooperating to improve the system by strengthening its institutions. Zardaris reported warning about the consequences of the prattle of the sort could possibly indicate his patience is wearing thin.