PTI leaders announced the worst-kept secret in Pakistani politics earlier this week, revealing that former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and about a dozen other PML-Q MNAs and former MPAs, including his son Moonis, were joining the party. Although the move was being branded as a merger, the group is technically a breakaway, since the PML-Q led by Chaudhry Shujaat still exists.
More significant, however, is how the move shakes up the PTI’s internal structure, especially in Punjab. Despite waning influence, Elahi remains a prominent figure in Punjab politics, and his appointment as the PTI’s Punjab president reflects how he has catapulted above the likes of Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Fawad Chaudhry, who were previously considered the party’s biggest guns in the province. Adding the Elahis is also certain to increase infighting, as the father and son have been extremely critical of some PTI leaders and have even been caught on live mikes and leaked tapes mocking Imran Khan and his closest advisers. It also shows that despite the party’s popularity in Punjab, Imran is genuinely worried about his ability to win the next election — why else would he make a man he used to call Punjab’s biggest bandit his party’s boss in the province? At least as a coalition partner, he had the excuse of political necessity.
But Elahi’s joining also suggests that ties between the PTI and the establishment are not irreparable — he has long made clear that he would never take any decision without the establishment’s approval. However, the same view is popular about Chaudhry Shujaat, which made the party split all the more interesting. While Shujaat remains head of the establishment-friendly party, will it matter by the time elections come around? The Shujaat camp now consists of only two MNAs — his son Salik Hussain and Tariq Bashir Cheema. Infighting could even put these seats at risk, and with no other ‘electables’ and Shujaat too ill to contest, the party is likely to either fade out or fold into another.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2023.
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