Party squabbling: Two chairmen to serve half-terms in Jhelum

Hamza Shahbaz to decide who will serve the first two-year term

JHELUM: To resolve a conflict over who would head the district council in Jhelum, the ruling PML-N has decided to let chairmen take turns.

Names of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidates, who would contest elections for the district council and municipal council chairmen in Jhelum later this month, had been finalised in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad.

However, there were tensions between two PML-N MNAs over the nomination of district council chairman, party sources said.

MNA Nadeem Khadim from NA-62 in Jhelum had proposed the name of Ahmed Shaukat for chairman. However, MNA Matloob Mehdi from NA-63 in Jhelum had put forward the name of Qasim Ali.

With neither backing down from their proposed candidate for the district chairman, the PML-N utilised a formula it had previously employed in Balochistan.

Following the May 2013 elections, the PML-N had smoothened out differences with its coalition member, the National Party, through the Murree Agreement. Under the agreement, NP’s Abdul Malik Baloch remained the province’s chief minister for around two years before the ruling PML-N’s Sanaullah Zehri took over in December 2015.

Khadim and Mehdi agreed to their respective candidates serving half-terms of two years each, putting an end to the altercation.

To resolve the matter of who would get to be the chairman first, party sources said Hamza Shahbaz would decide that question.

Earlier on Tuesday, sources said, the top leadership of the PML-N had summoned a meeting in Lahore of the board it had set up to decide the names of chairmen and vice chairmen of local bodies.

The leadership had made sure that PML-N Jhelum president Chaudhry Boota Javed and MNA Mehdi attended the meeting so that the matter can be resolved.

The meeting unanimously agreed to the name of Qasim Ali Khan as chairman and Dr Bashir as vice chairman of the Jhelum district council.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2016.