ISLAMABAD – It seems that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has shifted its focus from the 10-point reforms agenda and put it on the backburner as it has now proposed a national conference surprisingly with the judiciary and the army also to be invited as major stakeholders. Being the third proposal in sequence, after the Charter of Pakistan and the 10-point reforms agenda, the national conference is being seen as an attempt to buy time just like President Asif Ali Zardari’s proposal of summoning a roundtable conference last month but still nothing on ground has been except engaging political forces.
In response to President Zardari’s proposed roundtable last month, the PML-N frontline leaders had stated that the implementation of the party’s 10-point agenda by the government was more than enough to resolve multiple crises faced by the country as it was so well-thought out that no party could come up with a better option. Addressing a press conference on January 4, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had said if the prime minister did not respond affirmatively or the government failed to implement the reforms agenda within 45 days, the PML-N would take other political parties on board on its proposed agenda and if they also did not agree, then he would be left with no option but to call for mid-term polls.
Now after the government’s failure to meet the PML-N’s deadline for the implementation of the 10-point agenda, the party expelled the PPP from the coalition government in the Punjab but it was reluctant to take other parties on board on the reforms agenda as it had not initiated any contacts with the PML-Q, the MQM, the ANP, the JUI-F and the JI to win their support on the agenda, indicating that the PML-N had backtracked from its position.
The political opponents of the PML-N say Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s demand of convening a national conference was a political move to win more time for both the PPP and PML-N as the PML-N was not in a position to bring the masses to the streets against the PPP government or make demands for snap polls. They claim that both parties liked to continue the politics of reconciliation for mutual interests and the idea of the APC was meant to buy more time for the Sharifs who were being pressured by the media and party workers to end the friendly opposition.
The Punjab chief minister on Monday advised Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to call an all-parties conference, including the army and the judiciary, to devise solutions to the country’s problems. Faisal Saleh Hayat said the PML-N and PPP were trying to camouflage their failures through floating such proposals like the roundtable conference, all-parties conference, Charter of Pakistan and 10-point agenda.
“Three-year long political rhetoric of the PML-N is nothing but a massive mega smokescreen to divert the people’s attention from real issues,” he added. Faisal said the PML-N was just worried about how to perpetuate its own role in Punjab. He said the PPP was ruling the country due to a tacit support of the PML-N as both parties were observing you-scratch-my-back-and-I-will-scratch-yours rule.
Senator Pervez Rashid of the PML-N said his party had proposed the national conference as it would provide a forum where the party could present its agenda before all other political parties. He said political ground-realities had changed a lot in the last two months.
“At the time when Nawaz Sharif presented the 10-point agenda to the government, the MQM had parted ways with the coalition government but today the situation is different,” he said, adding that the PML-N had asked the prime minister to take the initiative to hold the national conference. “We can also organise it but only after waiting for some time for the PM’s response,” he added.
