ANP’s choice of Shahi Syed for a Senate seat piques MQM

Sattar believes by patronising likes of Shahi Syed, ANP wants 'to punish MQM for demanding separation of Hazara'.

Hardly a few minutes after the Supreme Court’s decision of endorsing the summoning of the prime minister, in person, on Feb 13 under the contempt charges, Dr Farooq Sattar forced the chair to hear him on a point of order in the National Assembly. The naïve types in the press gallery presumed that the parliamentary leader of an important ally of the Zardari-Gilani government would perhaps express anguish over deepening of tensions between different pillars of the state. But they could not believe their ears, when the MQM leader appeared fully exposing fragility of the Gilani-led coalition.

While talking to one news channel on Thursday, Senator Ilyas Bilour had justified the ANP’s decision to nominate Shahi Syed for a Senate seat. “Who else but Shahi Syed in this country could check the total control of Karachi that the MQM had been relishing for years,” was the question Bilour had supposedly put in a blunt manner. Sattar interpreted those remarks as if “owning the reign of terror that the ANP had unleashed in Sindh by killing thousands of our workers and supporters.” Both the federal and the Sindh government should consider these remarks seriously, Sattar demanded. He also desired that while monitoring the law and order scene in Karachi these days, the Supreme Court should also take note of the same remarks.

The MQM leader did not finish there. He seriously believed that by patronising the likes of Shahi Syed, the ANP also wanted “to punish our party for demanding the separation of Hazara” from Khyber-Pakhtunkhaw. “We will not budge,” he concluded. Farooq Sattar’s assertive intervention, precisely at a time when the Zardari-Gilani government desperately needed to convey the feel of absolute cohesion about it, forced many to seriously consider the rumours that started circulating in Islamabad on Thursday night.

After many days of nerve-wrecking negotiations, the government emissaries had finally succeeded to win the PML-N’s support for passage of the 20th amendment by late Thursday evening. The broad agreement between the two had not pleased the MQM. Some of its vocal legislators were reported to have been telling journalists of their liking that if due to the pressure of the PML-N, the government had agreed to revisit the 18th amendment, why not to address the demand for a separate Hazara province as well through the new amendment. One is yet not sure to what extent the MQM is determined to follow the said demand. But hawkish posturing by its legislators certainly bodes ill for the fate of the 20th amendment.

I also have it from highly reliable sources that even the growing ranks of hawks from within the Zardari-Gilani government were now having cold feet over getting the 20th amendment passed by all means. Friday’s decision of the Supreme Court has provided solid content to their conspiracy-spotting imagination. For months, the PPP hawks had been telling their leaders that extra-parliamentary forces were viciously sticking to a script that should lead us to early elections. “It’s time to stop bending and appeasing,” they believed.

Yousaf Raza Gilani had mostly been disregarding these hawks. But he started having second thoughts since November 2011. His appearance in the National Assembly on Friday clearly suggested that increasingly he had been getting ready to put up a fight to the finish. As an inviolable rule, he always took his seat in the National Assembly dressed all buttoned-up. After the Supreme Court’s Friday decision, however, he came with a jacket worn over an open neck shirt. He continued talking to some of his trusted ministers in a carefree manner throughout his presence in the house. One lie-low type legislator was seen specially walking up to his seat from a remote corner on the backbenches. When caught in the lobby, the same MNA confirmed my hunch. For sure, the backbencher had gone to communicate sympathy on the loss of intra-court appeal. “As politicians we should always be ready for all kind of eventualities,” was the sentence, the prime minister reportedly uttered while patting the said MNA in an unperturbed manner.

The prime minister has yet not shared the line and strategy he intends to follow while appearing before the Supreme Court under the contempt charges. His lawyer, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, is also keeping cards too close to his chest. Reporters are not supposed to give up so easily, though. With much effort, I am able to gather some hints to possible line of defence. This indeed is not the time to spill the beans. No harm in pondering over a question, though: Does the immunity-furnishing article 248 really violate the Islamic guidelines that the Objective Resolution furnished for our God-given Republic?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2012.