PML-N, PPP to discuss power sharing

Hasan Murtaza says no meeting of subcommittee on draft recommendations planned

LAHORE:

The Coordination Committee of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its major ally in the government, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), would meet on Monday, to take up issues related to the implementation of their power-sharing deal and other matters.

PPP General Secretary for Central Punjab Hasan Murtaza confirmed to The Express Tribune that a coordination committee meeting would be held on Monday. However, he stated that so far, no progress hadbeen made on the power-sharing arrangements.

The PML-N and the PPP had held a high level meeting last week, co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and the PPPP Central Punjab President Raja Pervez Ashraf, which decided to meet again within the week to zero in on some workable suggestions.

In this regard, it was also decided that draft recommendations would be prepared. Murtaza said that a subcommittee was formed with equal representation from both sides for preparing the draft recommendations regarding the power-sharing arrangements.

Earlier in the week, PML-N sources said, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz held a meeting on the power-sharing arrangements with PPP. During the meeting, the source added, the scope of the power-sharing arrangements was reviewed and finalised.

Despite the internal deliberations, the PML-N did not reach out to the PPP for any meeting. According to some PPP commentators, the PML-N had been dragging its feet on ceding any powers to PPPP for the past several months.

According to the PPP, both parties had agreed to a rudimentary power-sharing formula before entering into an alliance that allowed the PML-N to form Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led government at the Centre and in the Punjab province with Maryam Nawaz as the chief minister.

However, the implementation of this arrangement came into renewed focus prior to the presentation of the budget, when the PPP leaders brought this issue up. The party leaders in Punjab even went ahead to seek pegging the PPP's support for budget at Centre to the implementation of the power-sharing deal.

Murtaza told The Express Tribune that the PML-N had communicated to them the time for the next coordination committee meeting. When asked about the subcommittee meeting, he said that since PML-N had not given any time frame, therefore, that meeting would not be held.

Asked if the PML-N was shilly-shallying on the issue, he said that since a meeting schedule had been announced, therefore, he would not want to create any doubts about it. Despite several attempts, no PML-N leader was available for comments.