Pressure politics: Nawaz due today on visit

PML-N claims jilted PPP leaders want to join the party.

KARACHI:

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif is arriving today (Tuesday) for a one-day visit to Sindh to flood-hit areas. It is no irony that he will first go to Benazirabad, the hometown of President Zardari, before visiting other areas.

While the visit’s goal is to ostensibly review his party’s relief work and to distribute aid, political observers say it is also part of an upcoming election campaign. No harm done if Sharif also gets some work done to reorganise the party in Sindh.

The frequent visits of the Sharif brothers to this province have been a source of annoyance for the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership. They insist that nothing will be achieved because the people of the province are “aware that [the Sharifs] have looted and plundered public money during their tenure.”

There are other rumblings as well. Sources in the PML told The Express Tribune that negotiations between the PML-N leadership and its former allies, especially those who had left the Nawaz league and joined the Musharraf camp, are already underway. “Not only our former friends will come and re-join us, but many enraged PPP leaders have approached us,” claimed a senior PML-N leader.

These sources said that Ghaus Ali Shah, a senior PML-N leader in Sindh, has been given the task of contacting tribal chiefs and influential men in Sindh who were earlier with Pervez Musharraf. They include, for example, the Jatoi family of Dadu, the Mahars of Ghotki and Chandios of Kamber Shahdadkot, who have agreed to join the PML-N.

Party sources said that former chief minister Liaquat Jatoi, Sardar Ahmed Chandio, and the Mahar brothers of Khan Garh, Ghotki, including MNA Ali Mohammad Mahar and former district nazim Ali Gohar Mahar have all assured Nawaz Sharif they will join his party.

Imadad Chandio of the PML-N and a member of its organising committee told The Express Tribune that Nawaz Sharif’s recent visit was merely to help the flood survivors. “We are grateful to President Asif Ali Zardari, whose policies have created a division in the rank and file of the party [PPP],” he sarcastically remarked. “Many party leaders are confused about their future.”

In what could be seen as a marketing ploy, the party has started setting up “Sharif tent cities” in flood-hit areas. And possibly, in what could be seen as a branding rivalry, Sharif ration cards are also being distributed among the families. “Each ration card will be enough for five family members who can use it for five months,” Chandio said, adding that his party has also started four mobile dispensaries.

In response

Ahead of Sharif visit, Sindh information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon held a press conference on Monday. “The Sharif brothers are not ‘Khadim-i-aala’. Rather they are ‘Dakait-i-aala’ who have looted public money,” he said, suggesting that Nawaz Sharif would do better to focus on his own province where the Punjab government had failed to deliver.

Memon interpreted these moves as the PML-N’s decision to start a campaign against the government after the all parties conference. “The PML-N campaign against the government has created doubt among the people because its timing coincides with international pressure,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2011.