They don’t call it the art of the possible for nothing. An alliance between the PPP and the Q League would have been hard to imagine a couple of years ago. Today, it is just round the corner. Is this going to be easy for the PPP’s activists, specially the ones who have been pitted against the PML(Q) in their respective constituencies since long? No. Is it going to be easy to stomach for activists on the other side? Again, no. But the throes of desperation seem to make this a good enough deal for both parties.
This predilection to make lemonade out of lemons seems to be an exclusive domain of the political class. Imagine the civil bureaucracy swallowing its pride. Or the judiciary. Or, even worse, the military. By way of justification, these entities might whip out the trade-off between morality and expediency. But the debate over morality isn’t as neatly defined in a nation when the elected representatives of the people are shortchanged by the powers that be.
That doesn’t, of course, mean the alliance should be interpreted as some sort of consolidation of pro-democracy forces a la the PPP-ANP alliance. The Q League was never the last word on democracy. This has nothing to do with ideology. This is both a marriage of convenience and a shotgun marriage. It is easy to scare the Q with the bogeyman of that other League. The PPP has been tweaking that raw nerve. The PML(Q)’s options are limited.
The ruling party has even more to gain. Free indefinitely from the shackles the blackmailing junior partners like the MQM and the JUI, the government can finally strut its stuff in the national assembly with a swagger becoming of the treasury benches. A far cry from the present lily-livered setup, unsure of whether even the finance bill could be passed. The alliance could mean a much awaited stability to the shaky government and embolden it to take some tough decisions, especially on the economy. Interesting times, nonetheless.