Politics warms up

After a period of relative torpor the political parties of the mainstream appear to be stretching their limbs again. And it is increasingly evident that no matter what the outcome of the Panama Papers affair that the PML-N has a firm grip on power — and a firm grip also on the PPP which is passing through one of its periodic delusional phases. At a rally in Larkana on 4^th April ex-president Asif Zardari claimed that the next prime minister would be elected from the ranks of the Pakistan Peoples Party, citing the recent PPP rallies in Punjab that attracted large crowds as indicative of a rise in support. Be that as it may there is still a year until the next election and the PML-N is making sure that any gains claimed by the PPP are temporary at best and illusory at worst.

Much has been made of the working relationship between the PPP and the PML-N with the assumption being that there was a back-door agreement made to work together. Probably wrong. The federal government has decided that it will offer full support to senior officials in Sindh, the only province held by the PPP. The recent tussle between the federal government and Sindh as to the attempts to unseat an inspector general of police has ended in ignominy for the PPP. The officer concerned is reinstated and appears to have every intention of pursuing criminals whatever their political persuasion.

Equally to the discomfort of the PPP the anti-corruption drive in Azad Jammu and Kashmir is concentrating on the PPP and its alleged corruption whilst it was the governing party in AJK. A PML-N spokesperson spoke of ‘ruthless accountability’ being pursued in AJK, a comment likely to send a shiver down the collective spine of the PPP. The PPP remains popular in sections of the electorate but it is far below where it was electorally even in the aftermath of the trouncing it got in the last general election — followed by a further trouncing in the recent local bodies elections. Dead the PPP is not, but electorally it is decidedly unwell.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2017.

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