Ending gridlock: In a first, Shah talks about snap polls

Forcing PM to resign will create chaos, warns opposition leader.

ISLAMABAD:

While the country’s political gridlock is showing little sign of easing, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah on Tuesday raised for the first time the possibility of midterm elections if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif voluntarily decided to do so. Yet he warned of the perils of forcing the prime minister into stepping down, saying it would sow chaos in the country.

“It will not be appropriate to force the prime minister to resign at gunpoint. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will not accept any midterm polls in such a situation,” Shah told journalists in his chamber at the Parliament House. “If the situation arises, the prime minister can himself call snap elections,” he added.

Khursheed Shah, a PPP heavyweight, has vociferously supported the government in its row with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) – the two parties that have been camping on Islamabad’s Constitution Avenue since August 19, calling for the prime minister to step down.



It’s the first time Shah has publicly spoken about the possibility of midterm elections. Until now, he was opposed to the very idea of the prime minister relinquishing his post before the expiry of his five-year constitutional tenure. He has invited the ire of the PTI and PAT for siding with the PML-N government in the ongoing political standoff.

Some political analysts construe Tuesday’s statement of Shah as a possible change in the PPP’s policy on the impasse. They believe the party is gradually toughening its stance in a bid to dispel the prevalent impression that it was playing the role of a ‘friendly opposition’ in parliament.

The scion of the Bhutto family, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is the chairman of PPP, recently publicly apologized to his party’s activists for the mistakes the party made during its five-year rule. The PPP had to face a humiliating defeat in the 2013 elections while it was routed in South Punjab, which used to be bastion of power for the PPP in Punjab.

In Monday’s meeting of the PPP central executive committee the party decided to hold a big public rally on October 18 in Karachi where the party plans to formally launch the political career of Bilawal Bhutto. The move is seen as a response to the hyper-activism of the PTI, which has staged two massive political rallies in Karachi and Lahore, respectively.

The PPP has also started its reorganization. Its co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, who calls all the shots in the party, on Tuesday nominated a three-member committee to work out a ‘plan of action’ for holding intra-party elections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where the party used to have a considerable votebank in the past.

According to political analysts, the PPP is going into the election mode. Most within the party believe it will be difficult for the PML-N to complete its five-year tenure. And this is why it has started efforts to regain the ground lost during the past few years.

A senior PPP leader told The Express Tribune that his party would continue to support continuity of the democratic system. “But if the situation arises, we might join the chorus to gradually build up pressure on the PML-N for snap polls in the coming weeks,” he said. “Tuesday’s statement of Shah is part of that strategy.”

Another PPP stalwart from Punjab, Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, had made similar statements in the past.  “Shah’s statement is a continuation of what Aitzaz has already said,” he added.

On Tuesday, Khurshid Shah reiterated that his party always supported democracy and wanted to strengthen parliament. He claimed that the October 18 rally in Karachi was aimed at strengthening democracy. “It has nothing to do with any possible support to Imran Khan or Dr Qadri. Our rally will be for strengthening of the system” he added.

Khursheed Shah, who has come under scathing criticism from the PTI chairman, hit back saying that he has served Rs10 billion defamation notice on Imran for leveling serious allegations against him.

He said that Imran was ‘living in a fool’s paradise’. “Imran’s dream of routing the PPP from Sindh will never materialize,” he said referring to a statement of the PTI chief during his Karachi rally where he had said that he would liberate the people of Sindh from the clutches of feudal lords.

Shah admitted that the PPP made mistakes during its five-year rule which cost it dearly in the 2013 elections. “If the PML-N makes similar mistakes, some other party will replace it,” he added.

The opposition leader also demanded a probe into the allegations of rigging in the 2013 elections through the Supreme Court. “Negotiations are the only way to resolve the prevailing stalemate in talks between the government and protesting parties,” he added. “If the government fails to resolve the issue, a third force will take advantage of the situation.”


Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2014.