In blow to PTI, Mazari quits party, politics

Qureshi, Musarrat Cheema and her husband rearrested after being released from Adiala Jail

ISLAMABAD:

In a confusing political situation marked by arrests, releases, and rearrests, the PTI leaders are seemingly caught in a revolving door as they continue to quit the party and politics, leaving people and pundits constantly perplexed.

It seems their spirits are being broken by a relentless cycle of arrests and rearrests from prison gates. It took five rearrests for senior PTI leader Dr Shireen Mazari to abandon her resilient spirit and leave the political stage on Tuesday evening.

Shireen, while speaking to the media in Islamabad, announced that she was not only leaving the party but also saying goodbye to active politics, saying that her health and daughter Imaan Mazari suffered significantly during her 12-day incarceration.

“I am leaving politics because of my children, family, and health issues. My family and children are my first priority,” she said. “I have condemned the events that took place on May 9 and 10. I have condemned all forms of disorder.”

On Monday, Shireen was taken into custody yet again from outside the Adiala Jail despite being released on court orders. Earlier in the day, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued a contempt notice to the Islamabad police chief on a plea related to Shireen’s arrest.

The other significant departure from the PTI was former Punjab information minister Fayyazul Hasan Chohan, who announced his resignation from the party in an explosive news conference on Tuesday.

At the presser, Chohan lamented what he described was the party’s growing “policy of violence”. He expressed his disappointment with party chief Imran Khan for not advising against the use of force in politics.

“I am announcing that I have no association with the PTI. I am not leaving politics,” Chohan said. “They say people have software….my hardware is P-plus and Army-plus. I am and will always be a patriot.”

Chohan expressed distress over what he claims to be PTI’s antagonistic stance against the country’s institutions and the army. He said that he had implored Imran to abandon this confrontational strategy and refocus on the political struggle at hand.

When questioned about his future political plans, Chohan remained non-committal but assured that he would not be leaving politics. His next steps, he stated, would be decided according to the situation, leaving the door open for joining another political party.

Also on Tuesday, PTI Senior Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi along with PTI spokesperson Musarrat Jamshed Cheema and her husband Jamshed Cheema, were rearrested immediately after their release from the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

Qureshi and the Cheemas were detained under 3 MPO (Maintenance of Public Order) for 15 more days following their release on the orders of a local court.

Read Shireen arrested for fourth time

The Rawalpindi police took them into custody from outside the jail.

In a brief conversation with the media, Qureshi rejected the rumours of his departure from the party, stating that he was in the party and would remain so. “I am in the party and will remain in the party,” the former foreign minister said.

‘Forced divorces’

Though, PTI Chairman Imran sees this exodus as “forced divorces” at “gunpoint”, political experts suggest that it’s an attempt to factionalise the PTI just like the PML-N was converted into PML-Q overnight at the turn of the last century.

“Without beating around the bush, this is obviously the result of pressure coming from the establishment. The government is simply fanning it,” former PPP senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said.

Khokhar had himself paid the price of continuously speaking up on human rights violations, especially of the PTI leaders, before being asked to leave the PPP.

He said that the current practice of pressuring politicians to leave politics wasn’t pleasing.

The incumbent rulers, he added, shouldn’t take pleasure in opponents’ departure from political arena.

“This doesn’t bode well for politics in general and those who are beaming at it today will surely regret it tomorrow.”

On the whirlwind of arrests and continuous pressure from the powerful quarters, the former senator said that “only time will tell if the PTI survives this”, adding that the political parties had survived in the past.

“The PML-N overnight converted into the PML-Q if we recall, but Nawaz Sharif is still a political reality today,” Khokhar said, adding that deeper in the past, the PPP went through a similar phase.

However, he added, the culture of arson and vandalism must be discouraged and the PTI and its workers had much to learn from other parties.

The unexpected chain of events has unfolded just days after a series of attacks on key civilian and military installations on May 9, following the arrest of the former prime minister in a graft case.

Soon after the arrest, protesters took to the streets, key government and military buildings were attacked, ransacked and torched, several people lost lives and dozens were injured while scores of the PTI supporters were detained, including key party leaders.

The arrested party leaders included Fawad Chaudhry, Asad Umar, Qureshi, Dr Yasmeen Rashid, Shireen, Maleeka Bukhari, Chauhan, Musarrat Cheema and her husband.

Since then, roughly two-dozen leaders have announced quitting the party while others were expected to make their announcements soon.

The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said that the most PTI leaders are under pressure, adding that some might have genuinely disliked what happened on May 9.

Read more PTI's K-P leadership mostly intact following May 9 riots

“The Idea probably is to cripple or factionalise the PTI so that it is no more a potent political force,” the PILDAT chief said. To the questions what seems to be the final objective of this drive and who would benefit the most, Mehboob said: “I don’t think anybody will benefit from these acts unless political action goes hand in hand with administrative & punitive actions.”

PTI Chairman Imran said that everyone had heard about forced marriages in Pakistan, but for the PTI, a new phenomenon had emerged: forced divorces.

In a tweet, he wondered “where have all the human rights organisations in the country disappeared”.

Before the tweet, Imran claimed that the PTI leaders were being forced to leave the party at “gunpoint”.

Speaking informally to journalists at a court in Islamabad, Imran said, “People are not leaving the party on their own, they are being forced to do so, and that too at gunpoint.”

However, he maintained that he was not bothered by the departure of the key party leaders, stressing that “parties never die down like that; they are weeded out like the [ruling coalition] PDM is eroding, the way their vote bank is depleting”.

“I am only worried about the workers and especially the women,” he added.

The PTI leaders met with an unexpected turn of events after being released on bail on Tuesday as the law enforcers struck swiftly and made sure that the PTI leaders’ freedom was short-lived.

Soon after the protests, the PTI leaders and workers had landed in hot waters as not only they were arrested but country’s civil and military leadership vowed to try those involved in ransacking the military installations under the Army Act and Official Secret Act.

As the crackdown against the PTI leaders and workers continued, the incumbent civil-military leadership announced that May 9 would be observed as “Black Day” at the national level.

The detentions to break the PTI leaders’ spirits just ahead of elections make it look like the situation before 2018 elections, when the PML-N leaders, including Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz, were incarcerated.