Likeminded forgets intra-party polls as its leaders catch PML-N bus

As the efforts of Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded (PML-LM) leaders for reunion with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N have started bearing fruits, the central command of PML-Likeminded have lost interest in party affairs and have failed to hold intra-party elections which otherwise were supposed to be completed by September 15, 2011.
The act of unannounced postponement of intra-party polls by the PML-Likeminded leaders also mocks their claims of championing against dynastic politics in the country. The PML-Likeminded leaders have been criticising the 19th Amendment saying that the abolition of Article 17 (4) from the constitution, which made it mandatory to hold elections within the political parties, had curtailed promotion of democracy within the party and enhanced dynastic politics.
On July 20 this year, PML-Likeminded President Senator Salim Saifullah Khan had announced schedule of party general elections 2011 according to which district wise elections had to be completed till July 30, provincial elections till September 15, and central party elections were supposed to be completed till September 30, 2011. A source in the PML-Likeminded told Pakistan Today that apart from lukewarm response from two provinces including Sindh and Balochistan where the party had nominal presence, the ice-melting between the PML-N and the PML-Likeminded was the key factor which caused postponement of intra-party polls.
“As the central leaders of the PML-Q dissident bloc (PML-Likeminded) including Salim Saifullah, Hamayun Akhtar, Kashmala Tariq and others are receiving positive signals from Nawaz’s led party for reunion of estranged political partners, they have lost interest in party matters and think that it is useless to spend millions on elections of the party which according to their plan would have to be disbanded sooner or later,” said a PML-Likeminded leader seeking not to be attributed.
He said the party’s president had announced emotionally that the PML-Likeminded elections would be held at district levels. “In many districts of the country, the party has neither any structure nor aspirants to office,” he said. He said the party would continue working with same team of chairman (Hamid Nasir Chattha), president (Salim Saifullah), secretary general (Hamayun Akhtar Khan), information secretary (Kashmala Tariq) and chairman of party’s steering committee (Khurshid Kasuri) which was elected on August 20, 2009 at the time of party’s birth.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded Central Organizing Committee (COC) meeting was held in July this year in which party general election schedule was announced. In the meeting it was discussed that according to the constitution of the party, the party elections from grass-root to provincial and central levels were to be held in 2010 as decided by PML-Likeminded Central General Council meeting held on August 20, 2009 but they were postponed last year due to heavy flood and deteriorating law and order situation in the country.
Talking to Pakistan Today, PML-Likeminded central leader Senator Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi said the party could not hold intra-party elections according to schedule on requests of party workers from Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He negated the impression that party’s central leaders were loosing interest in party affairs as they had achieved their goal of reaching rapprochement with the Sharifs. “We are forming an alliance with the PML-N but we will not merge with it,” Qureshi added.