United opposition?

For the revival of the Charter of Democracy that was signed by Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in 2006

Opposition parties are once again trying to unite against the government. The first time they made a similar attempt was when Imran Khan had become the Prime Minister in August last year and his PTI had taken over the reins of power with the help of its allies. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F, who is out of parliament for the first time in decades, acted as a go-between with the PML-N and the PPP, but the two main opposition parties finally fell out, having failed to agree on joint candidates for the offices of Prime Minister and President, respectively. Hence, a potential grand alliance of no less than 11 opposition parties turned out to be a non-starter.

Five months on, the opposition parties are in a huddle, once again. A meeting hosted by PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif in his chamber in the Parliament House was attended by opposition bigwigs, including Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto. Interestingly, representatives of the BNP-M, a member of the ruling coalition, were also in attendance at the opposition’s huddle that claims to have worked out a joint anti-government strategy. The opposition’s strategy is built around reviving the Charter of Democracy that was signed by Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in 2006, besides opposing yet another extension in the tenure of military courts as well as the mini-budget scheduled for January 23.

While there is a big question mark on whether an anti-government huddle of opposition parties can really translate into a grand opposition alliance, the possibility of something of a concern for the government has at least emerged. And the credit for bringing the opposition on a single platform to discuss an anti-government strategy goes to nobody else than the ruling party itself which seems uninterested in keeping the political temperatures down to secure an ease of doing the business of governance.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2019.

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