Nawaz Sharif can turn around the situation in Balochistan
Post election politics is in full swing. Judging their strength, political parties are busy either currying favours or strong-arming their possible coalition partners. This is all the more so in Balochistan where probable coalition partners are in a deadlock as to who will become the next CM of the province. With the new legislature taking oath yesterday, a lack of consensus on appointing a CM bodes well neither for the coalition partners nor democracy in the province that has never actually tasted its fruits.
The frontrunners for the coveted seat include one sardar, Sanaullah Zehri, also the provincial president PML-N, and National Party chief Dr Abdul Malik Baloch who has the support of PkMAP as well. What is vexing the observers is that prime minister-designate and party chief of PML-N, Nawaz Sharif, appears to be favouring the sardar, a breed that is attributed with most of the ills in the province while not being pleased at ‘irrational demands’ of NP and PkMAP leaders. One could argue that donning the avatar of country’s chief executive officer for the third time should have made the N League supremo more in sync with the ground realities in the province, but in all likelihood if there ever was any lesson that he learnt, it apparently does not involve sharing power. Sanaullah Zehri has feudal sardar background, with links with the agencies that have been alleged, and believed by many, of being involved in forced disappearances and killings of the Baloch youth. Dr Malik, on the other hand, is a man well educated and comes from a middle class background, thus is supposed to be more entrenched in the poor, desperate and deprived people’s lives.
A sardar’s appointment would only give credence to what Nawaz Sharif has always been alleged of: an exclusivist. Instead of taking a stand for the wretched Baloch people, he is poised to announce a CM who despite being in the last government did nothing to help improve the situation of his home province, as the establishment continued to call shots over there through their proxies in the form of sardars. A province already so alienated cannot afford to go through another government that stands on the outside while the people wrestle with the forces of violence and injustice on a daily basis. However, as with third time being a charm, Nawaz Sharif has a chance to turn things around there. Dr Abdul Malik is someone whose profile sits well with the people of the province and who the Baloch resistance youth would easily agree to sit down with for peace talks but political exigencies, if the PML-N surrenders before them, might actually ruin this chance. Playing the right card is important.
