Political manoeuvring: Nostalgic PML-N cosying up to the military again?

Key party positions may be given to leaders close to Shahbaz, who is more liked by the military than Nawaz.

ISLAMABAD:

Individuals closely associated with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif are set to grab key positions when Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) holds intra-party elections on Wednesday (today).

The move is likely to put the PML-N back in the ‘good books’ of the powerful security establishment, sources say.

“All those nominated for important party slots are closer to the younger Sharif … you can judge for yourself what that means,” a top leader told The Express Tribune on Tuesday, indicating how desperately the group was seeking to regain the ‘closeness’ it once had with the establishment in the 1990s.

According to reports in recent months, Pakistan’s military-dominated establishment has expressed willingness to lend a helping hand to the party but is not ready to work with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Nawaz, who currently heads the party as its patron, and is set to become the president in Wednesday’s elections, has a troubled history of working with the military as prime minister twice in the 1990s. ‘Spoiler’ is the term top military leaders usually use to describe him.

His younger brother Shahbaz, however, is more ‘acceptable’ to the country’s establishment.

Shahbaz, considered more cool-headed than Nawaz by the uniformed men, has been holding overt and covert meetings with army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in recent months. According to some reports, they have discussed political cooperation.

According to PML-N sources, there is a growing realisation within party ranks that it cannot regain the glory of the 1990s when it won a two-thirds majority in the 1997 general election without the establishment’s backing.

There were reports that the PML-N had promised the movers and shakers of power politics that Nawaz Sharif will not seek any role in the future administration, though he is set to become the party’s president for the first time in 10 years.

Though all potential office bearers for key party slots had been nominated by Nawaz, sources said it was ‘forced rather than a choice decision’ for him.

Surprisingly, 82-year-old Sartaj Aziz has been nominated to become the party’s secretary-general in place of Zafar Iqbal Jhaghra. Aziz was once the country’s foreign minister, and therefore understandably close to the civil-military bureaucracy.

A party leader from Peshawar told The Express Tribune that bringing him to the key slot might be an attempt to ‘repair’ shattered ties with the establishment.

“Sartaj was one of the several leaders behind the glory the party had in the 1990s … and we believe he can do that again,” said another leader in Islamabad.

Senator Pervaiz Rasheed, being tipped for the crucial slot of information secretary, is also thought to be closer to the younger Sharif than to the older one.

In another indication of the party being ‘cautious’ of its ties with the establishment, all leaders who were at the forefront of the struggle against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf have apparently been sidelined.

Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who spent four years in jail for criticising the army, is a prime example. He is being offered a ‘symbolic’ slot of senior vice president.

Similarly, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who reportedly has very cordial relations with the military, had also expressed willingness to join the PML-N. Sharif was reportedly ready to embrace him but opposition by Hashmi, a constituency rival of Qureshi, forced Sharif to defer the plan, at least for now.





Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2011.