This was the time when the PPP must have been feeling that it was sitting pretty. The combined weight of its allies in the National Assembly had taken the numbers game well into the comfort zone. Almost every flank stood covered after cozying up to the much-maligned establishment, thereby partially lifting the siege under which the latter had come due to the events of the last couple of months.
By the same token, the PPP for the first time in this fourth stint in power at least in public did not seem to be threatened by the khaki.
But exactly when the clamour of a mid-term election was supposed to have been silenced following a thumping win in Azad Kashmir, the MQM has thrown its own spanner in the works.
Always full of jack-in-the box surprises, the MQM has again sprung its usual sulking resignation (cross my heart and hope to die) on the government and opted to sit with the opposition for the present.
Only this time, after the MQM leader’s fiery outpouring from London (as ever never easy on the ear and containing every cliché in the repertoire except God is Love), it might be for real. Another manifestation that this might be more permanent than usual is that Ishrat-ul-Ibad, who seemed set to remain ensconced in the Sindh Governor’s House till kingdom come since Gen. Musharraf rehabilitated and put him up there in 2002, has also gone.
Yet given that the MQM out of power is like fish out of water (how would the party manage without the federal ports and shipping ministry, one wonders), for the moment political fingers are still being kept crossed.
The irony is that the issue that led to the latest break was really insignificant as compared to the earlier heavy storms that the coalition had weathered. A little matter of two Azad Kashmir seats located in Karachi, whose election was postponed by the federal government on the advice of the interior ministry (can’t keep a good man like Rehman Malik down on any matter) citing the admittedly grim law and order situation in that violence-plagued city where target killings are the norm.
But all Hell appears to have broken loose after the postponement, with the MQM claiming that it was the result of not appeasing the PPP’s desire to indulge in horse trading by conceding one of the seats to the latter.
Perhaps still in a reconciliatory mode, the PPP has not denied the allegation.
Is the present split merely another ‘tournament of shadows’ or does it betoken a real rupture that might be the harbinger of a quantum change in the country’s political alignment by a ganging up of the fragmented opposition forces – with a wink and nod you know from where? What was it that invited the thundering wrath of the MQM chief, the election delay or some hidden puppeteer of old was at work?
Or is it the same old ‘turf war’ between the MQM, the PPP, and the recent addition of ANP with the PPP’s support taking it on? The MQM, of course, is unwilling to accept the reality of the ANP as another power base in a city on which it desires hegemonic, fascistic control.
Or is it that the MQM was frustrated that if the PPP was unwilling to concede it the two Azad Kashmir seats that by its lights fell in its ‘area of influence’, it could not expect Asif Zardari to oblige Altaf Hussain’s ambition to expand its presence up-country come the next general elections? The ingress of the PML(Q) as a possible future electoral ally with the PPP might have been too infuriating, though the MQM had come back to the fold after the inclusion of the Quislings in the alliance.
Altaf Hussain’s speech left little to the imagination. He lashed out at the ruling PPP, the president and the government, asserting that the end for the government was nigh, that it had been a mistake to nominate Zardari as president and that the present setup was worse than a dictatorship.
The deep rancour in Altaf’s manner suggested as if the decision to walk away had already been made before the postponement decision. If it had been, then should one presume that something is indeed afoot that might eventually result in a definite change in the political dispensation?
The PML(N) is already testing the waters for a possible grand alliance, and its tone towards the MQM has visibly softened. Imran Khan has already shown that whatever the rhetoric before and after May 12, 2007, he could live with the ‘fascists’. The Jamaat-i-Islami and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf have long been baying for Zardari’s head, and one can be sure that the JUI(F) would be found where the howling is the loudest!
The conspiracy theorists desperate to see the end of the Zardari regime insist that if, and it is not a very big if indeed, the PML(Q) is lured away (its leadership by tradition, can ‘resist anything but temptation’) the PPP government is done for.
A whole lot though depends on whether the quarters that normally give the go-ahead to such motley alliances to form overnight (the PNA, the IJI and the MMA come readily to mind with the history of their genesis rather well recorded) are restive enough to afford worsening an already much destabilised country when the radicalisation is taking such a heavy toll?
This remains the point of conjecture, for if those forces really are willing to see his back come what may, Zardari’s charmed ascent to the pinnacle might well be in jeopardy. For his part though, the PPP head honcho seems all confident of marching towards the March 2012 senate elections and add another feather to his already much-adorned cap.
But nine months is too long a period in politics.
The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.
