Analysis: Fasten your seat belts, political turbulence ahead

Let us wait and see how this PML-N-PPP divorce impacts national and provincial politics in the long and short runs.

Let us not jump to any quick conclusions. Let us wait and see how this much-awaited PML-N-PPP divorce in the Punjab impacts national and provincial politics in the long and short runs.

It is quite reassuring that the language of both Nawaz Sharif and Raza Rabbani, at their respective press conferences held immediately following the parting of ways, remained largely free from invectives, personal attacks and tirades which was the hallmark of their verbal exchanges in the politically-infamous decade of 1990. And doubly reassuring was the fact that the PPP leadership, for a change, chose Raza Rabbani, a person known for his uprightness, rather than the slippery Rehman Malik or the hawkish Babar Awan, to respond to Nawaz Sharif’s complaints.

At his press conference, Nawaz Sharif sounded genuinely hurt by the way he claimed President Zardari had treated his numerous attempts to help him improve governance and reduce corruption. Any doubts that the PML-N had used the so-called 10-points and its 45-day ultimatum simply as an excuse for the final split were dispelled by Nawaz himself when he said that he could no more stand the taunts of being a ‘friendly opposition’.

But more than the taunts, he was perhaps conscious of the fact that, with only 24 months to go for the next general elections, it was time for him and his party to make an emphatic bid for the role of genuine opposition and also stop the majority of right- and right-of- centre voters of Punjab from being grabbed by the Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and Tehrik-i-Insaf (TI)— two parties which perhaps have made impressive political gains on the back of the recent blasphemy and Raymond Davis related agitations in the province.

And it was perhaps also time to deal the final blow to the PML-Q and its like-minded faction. The move to own the PML-Q unification group, which, on the face of it, seems unethical, had become the need of the hour for Nawaz Sharif. He now seems all set to destroy, before the next election, the entire political edifice built by former president General Musharraf by stealing most of PML-N’s winning candidates in the Punjab.

In the time between now and the elections, the PML-N perhaps wants first to consolidate its position in the Punjab by re-grabbing the voters that have veered off to JI and TI and also completely decimate the PML-Q and all its factions in the province and then reinvent itself in the three other provinces where it has no, or only negligible, presence.

The PML-N’s political consolidation process in the Punjab would itself perhaps take almost a year to complete. So, one can safely rule out the possibility of mid-term elections resulting from Friday’s PPP-PML-N split in the province.

Meanwhile, what would the PPP do? It is certain that the party would not sit idle and give a walkover to the PML-N in the Punjab. The possibility is it would fight tooth and nail to win back the province comprehensively. And in its new role of opposition it would perhaps be in a better position to do this rather than entering the election phase sharing the provincial treasury benches with the PML-N.

The political scenario, likely to emerge following the ouster of the PPP from the provincial government and the entry of the unification group in the provincial power corridors, would be one of intense political activity with the PML-N and the PPP entering a straight fight to the exclusion of other parties from the contest in the Punjab.

The PPP has won three general elections since it was unceremoniously removed from power in 1977 by president general Ziaul Haq. But in all these three elections, the establishment had rigged the Punjab votes in such a way that, while the party could form governments at the centre and the three smaller provinces, it fell short of the needed votes to rule the Punjab. So, this time the PPP is likely to give the PML-N a run for its money.

So, fasten your seatbelts, a lot political turbulence is ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2011.