Why the PPP won’t repeat the follies of Musharraf

The genre of theatre has innumerable forms, but I have still not been able to find the right category to put in the yawn-inducing happenings at the National Assembly that have been functioning in this country since 2008.

As usual, after starting very late in the morning, the National Assembly wasted more than 40 minutes to decide what to discuss before adjourning for the weekend. The MQM, however, prevailed to enforce another discussion on the much abused and hackneyed issue of “the alarming deterioration of the law and order in Karachi.” And, a hardcore Mullah from Balochistan, Ismatullah, vigorously supported this self-proclaimed “party of the middle class” with flashy labels of liberals and modernists about it in this endeavour.

Although elected on a ticket of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI, Ismatullah, eventually found the JUI-F turning unbearably pragmatic and ‘worldly’. He now heads an ‘ideological’ faction and stridently pretends to defend the Deobandi legacy. The Maulana described the killing of three teachers of Jamia Binoria in Karachi the other day as “obvious execution of a nefarious conspiracy that has been targeting Ulema in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.” He kept thundering to wake us up for protection of the “messengers of Islam.”

A youthful MQM legislator, Anis Ahmed, took the floor after him. With colloquial lingo of the streets of Karachi, he sounded like a professor of international affairs while trying to connect the bloody chaos in Karachi to the “great game played in Afghanistan.” His leader, Altaf Hussain, has been consistently forewarning that the Taliban were spreading their tentacles in Karachi. “Most politicians and commentators laughed at him. Now tell me who proved right in the end?”

In rhetorical fits, the honorable member didn’t bother remembering that his party had remained a very powerful stakeholder of the power play in Sindh since 2002. Maintaining law and order is the responsibility of the provincial government anyway and the MQM cannot just shrug it off to blame others.

Another message clearly conveyed through his speech was that the MQM is no more happy and comfortable with Rehman Malik, the federal interior minister. He was rather lynched for “inciting fear and chaos among the residents of Karachi” by repeatedly predicting that February 2013 could be the cruelest month for this city. Some in the press gallery could also discern that the MQM seriously felt that if things turned more chaotic in their 'base', the Sindh government might get suspended like Balochistan. With Dr Ishratul Ebad sitting in the governor house, it should not feel too jittery about the said possibility unless. But I prefer to switch to another issue.

No one said a word on this issue in the House, but most ministerial chambers were transmitting its echoes. For writing a strong worded letter to the President, NAB chairman has been summoned to appear before the Supreme Court. He was found to have made the contemptuous attempt of “maligning and scandalising the apex court” by writing the said letter and then winking to let it come out in public. “Has the government finally opted to go for a do or die showdown with the court it always perceived as too intrusive?” was the question.

A hawkish minister from an allied party kept coming up with affirmative answers. A set of active reporters also claimed that NAB chairman had decided to appear before the court on Feb 4 with a forceful defence and narrative. Various files have reportedly been extracted from archives of different ministries and dusted off to spin the story that while appointing characters like Adnan Khawaja, the then prime minister took the “same route which was once adopted to facilitate the induction of a famous son to the Police Service of Pakistan.” We have surely seen this film during the heady April of 2007.

But after talking to sources, well-clued to the presidency, I can safely predict that the current resident of this building is just not interested to repeat the follies of Musharraf. He would rather prefer to get to the next election without much ado. While fighting his battles with the apex court, the NAB chairman had better relied on his “real sponsors and promoters”

My sources insist that President Asif Zardari has also begun to view the “Qadri-driven drama from a different angle. He is yet not able to fathom as to why two of his weighty allies continued to pamper a self-centric cleric, who suddenly landed in Islamabad to stage a revolution in Pakistan after spending five years in exile.” His sole priority, a source told me, “remains holding of the next election on time. The rest are dubious games he does not want to play at all.”

Little wonder, Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gul, a lifelong rival of the Chaudhrys’ of Gujrat, was found behaving too upbeat in the lobbies on Friday. For him, the PPP-PML-Q alliance was “over and done with” and the PPP’s Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar is all set to contest for a National Assembly seat from Gujrat against Parvaiz Elahi, currently savoring the title of deputy prime minister in the “coalition government.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2013.