PML-N still in two minds about resigning en masse

Nisar recalls the specific allegations of corruption levelled against a son of the Prime Minister.

A picket of relatively small but charged crowd of industrial workers had camped outside the parliament house Thursday morning. Throughout the day, they kept chanting slogans against Zahid Hamid, an experienced lawmaker from the PML-N who had also served as a minister under Musharraf-Aziz government. Being an active member of a lawmaking committee, he had opposed induction of a few amendments in Industrial Relations Ordinance that the government had wanted to introduce seemingly with a worker-friendly intent.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan felt offended by the crowd and believed that by “stage-managing such crowds the PPP government was trying to bully the public representatives.” But he could not keep his focus on the said issue for long and went on a tangent blaming the government for all the evils under the sun, although without saying anything new. There was a point, however, that he kept rubbing in, almost viciously. “There is a minister in this government (Faisal Saleh Hayat) who keeps appearing before the Supreme Court to prove that Gilani-led government was indulging in corrupt practices. Continuing, Nisar said the minister in question keeps doing the same while recklessly disregarding the reality that he continues to serve as a minister in the same government.”

Before walking out of a “shamelessly irrelevant proceedings in the house,” Nisar also recalled the specific allegations of corruption levelled against a son of the Prime Minister by Allama Hamid Saeed Kazmi. This formidable Pir from the Seraiki belt is in jail these days for allegedly being responsible for the scam that hit the fan during the Hajj season last year.

Despite delivering a scathing speech, Nisar Ali Khan failed to make any waves and ended up giving the impression that he was just trying to score some brownie points against the government. His posturing failed to discourage journalists from chasing confirmation to a hot rumour circulating all across the four-storey parliament house Thursday.

The rumour claimed that the PML-N had finally decided to resign from the National Assembly in the first week of January 2012. Despite agreeing to the proposed timeframe, Nawaz Sharif is still not giving the approving nod. From his own sources, he claimed to have found out that the Election Commission had informed the government, presumably in writing, that it could not finalise an error-free voters’ list until the end of June 2012.

The Election Commission’s reported communication clearly suggests that the PML-N would not get elections “within 90 days,” if assembly were to be dissolved due to submission of 90-plus resignations in one go. It would rather lengthen the tenure of the caretaker government to be established for holding of elections. Nawaz Sharif instinctively fears this ‘rub’ and he does so for solid reasons.

After all, the rumours in town are again hot predicting the surfacing of “a caretaker government of well reputed technocrats that should rule until holding of next elections.” The conspiracy-addicted drawing rooms of the elitist sectors are confident of getting the said government, “immediately after Moharram.” Imran Khan will surely dent the Nawaz vote bank, if elections are delayed and the PML-N leader is just not willing to invest in a losing proposition.

Instead of discussing the big picture, though, the ministerial chambers and their journalist visitors were far more interested to find out the name who would replace Hussain Haqqani as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US. Salman Bashir, the incumbent foreign secretary, seemed the hot favorite. A lie-low but enthusiastic listener to gossip in power corridors, however, whispered to my ear that General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, serving as Director General ISI these days after getting one-year extension in his tenure, must seriously be considered by newshounds. He kept referring to General Pasha, even after getting it from a PML-Q MNA that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain “had already proposed the name of Mushahid Hussain Syed as a replacement of Haqqani.”

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