PPP troubles

There are few offences in government for which one can be fired, but being friends with Zulfiqar Mirza, as Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon just found out, is rapidly becoming one of them. Memon was forced to submit his resignation after he was spotted cavorting with Mirza in London, an act that immediately led to outrage from the MQM. The PPP, which has already thrown Mirza overboard for his heresies, had to let Memon go too. In the uneasy alliance that exists between the two parties right now, the MQM holds all the cards. In fact, it may be all that stands between the government’s survival and early elections. For that reason alone, Memon had to be sacrificed for his admittedly foolish move in going to London with Mirza.

As for Mirza, he certainly created quite a stir in the home city of MQM chief Altaf Hussain. The ostensible purpose of his trip is to provide Scotland Yard with supposed evidence of Hussain’s alleged involvement in a host of crimes, including murder. But the trip seems more like an opportunity for Mirza to stay in the spotlight, with a host of speeches around the United Kingdom, including ones at the House of Lords and the Oxford Union. One wouldn’t be too cynical in suggesting that this is perhaps a dry run for Mirza’s future political ambitions.

Zulfiqar Mirza has now become an increasingly loose cannon that the PPP must handle with caution. They cannot allow him to continue castigating his own party and so suspended his basic membership in the PPP. Now, as Memon’s forced resignation showed, even Mirza’s friends aren’t safe. But at the same time, Mirza’s lonely crusade has won him plaudits with the Sindhi nationalist element within the PPP, a vote bank that the party has always seen as the backbone of its electoral strength. Losing that would be catastrophic for the PPP in the next elections. Thus you get gestures of reconciliation like the one from Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who said that he still considers Mirza a good friend of his. With the PPP being outflanked by the military on memogate and likely to lose its ambassador in Washington, and the PML-N making threatening noises about resigning from the assembly, this attack from within is the last thing the party needs.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2011.