Master move

President Asif Ali Zardari was able to achieve just what he wanted, holding firmly MQM and PML-Q.

The coalition at the centre appears to have regained the strength that had been draining away. The PML-Q, and hours later the MQM, are back in the fold. The see-sawing game that has been played by the party for years continues. At the joint press conference in Karachi where Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad, along with Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali, announced the decision to re-join the government, no specific reasons were given, aside from some talk of the national crisis and the need for unity at such a time. Certainly, a strong central coalition is important at this moment.

But if we look more carefully, we see a master hand at work. It seems that using the sense of political acumen he has consistently demonstrated, President Asif Ali Zardari was able to achieve just what he wanted, playing the MQM off against the PML-Q, and as a result holding firmly onto both parties. While the MQM had parted ways with the PPP some weeks before, primarily over the situation stemming from the killings in Karachi, the PML-Q had been expressing discontent over what it termed the PPP failure to keep promises. These murmurings will quieten down with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s announcement that the coalition will be kept intact, even though there is said to be some division within that party.

We must hope that the MQM decision this time round is a more lasting one than those we have seen in the past. The constant process of the making and breaking of coalitions does little to build faith in our democracy. It will take time for this to build into a solid, reliable entity — but the process needs to begin. The skill demonstrated by the president defeats the rather bleak — or perhaps hopeful — predictions from opposition parties, notably the PML-N, that the coalition could tumble. This has not happened — but let us hope that following the latest developments we can move towards the kind of stability we so desperately need to overcome the multiple problems we face, and move towards solutions through lasting cooperation between the partners instead.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2011.