Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) top leadership is deliberating on how to keep their party relevant and intact after the drubbing they received on May 11.
The Chaudhrys have called a party meeting in Lahore today (Saturday) to figure out what to do with what is left of the party.
With two MNAs and seven MPAs, it is very difficult to stay relevant in any power equation. With little success in the general elections, PML-Q is weighing various options on individual and collective levels.
Senior party leaders may be in trouble as members of the party have been eyeing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) after it achieved a much more impressive win than PML-Q. The fact that many members may leave to join PTI has now become a reality for PML-Q.
A senior party leader said that after his defeat in the recent elections, workers from his constituency were approaching on him on a daily basis with the intention to join PTI.
“They find no future in PML-Q anymore and they want to join PTI. Right now, the challenge for us is how to preempt these individuals from leaving the party,” he said.
For the Chaudhrys, it was a crucial election from personal as well party’s point of view. They had set a modest target of 10 to 15 seats in National Assembly. They thought that with this much strength, they would be relevant to any party having ambitions to form a government. This strategy would have kept them afloat in power corridors. However, much to their shock and dismay, election results were contrary to their expectations and those of their key allies. They are still not sure how PML-Q got the figures they did in general elections. On their own performance in the elections, they are equally clueless.
As they are nowhere near the goal they had set for themselves, it is quite challenging for Chaudhrys to stay relevant personally and save party from further disintegration.
Right now Chaudhrys are highly cautious, if not nervous, about what to do in the face of Nawaz Sharif forming governments both in the centre and Punjab with very little room for the PML-Q leadership to their parliamentary strength.
They have no clue what treatment the Sharif brothers might dish out to them this time around. In the last government, Sharifs tried their best to malign the Chaudhrys with corruption charges. As such the new beginning of Sharifs is challenging for Chaudhrys from a personal angle.
There is likelihood that they will try to make a common cause with PTI, both in the province and the centre. They expect little from PPP as an opposition party.
And for the party at large, they would like the individual members to think twice before leaving.
“The Chaudhrys will ask on Saturday to their party members not to make hurry in changing loyalties. Individual departures will be hardly beneficial for anybody. Let the party deal with other parties collectively,” the senior leader said.
