The seasonal sparrows
of our spring
The unedifying
spectacle playing out in our political firmament provides much food for
thought. The elections of the Senate Chairman and Deputy Chairman yesterday
reflected the state of our politics. The defeat of the ruling PML-N candidates,
whose victory was widely expected and predicted by most pundits, surprised
everyone, not the least the PML-N itself. On the eve of these elections, PML-N
spokesman Mushahidullah Khan was confidently predicting his party had about 57
votes in the bag, more than sufficient to achieve victory. How then did this
claim turn out to be reversed almost exactly, producing 57 votes for the
‘combined’ opposition’s candidate for Chairman, a relatively unknown politician
from Chaghai, Balochistan, Sadiq Sanjrani? And how did the PPP’s candidate for
Deputy Chairman, businessman Saleem Mandviwalla, garner 54 votes? The PML-N’s
candidates were Raja Zafarul Haq and Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami
Party for Chairman and Deputy Chairman. They got 46 and 44 votes respectively.
The MQM-P abstained in the vote for Deputy Chairman and Ishaq Dar obviously was
not there, so only 98 votes were cast for the Deputy Chairman’s slot. Sadiq
Sanjrani and Saleem Mandviwalla owe their success and good fortune to a number
of factors. First and foremost, they were the ‘indirect’ choice of not only the
PPP, but also PTI and some other smaller parties. Asif Zardari once again
proved himself a master of wheeling-dealing, turning the tables on perhaps an
overconfident ruling party that delayed its choice of candidates till virtually
the last minute and failed to keep a vigilant eye on our seasonal sparrows who
have heralded the onset of spring by flying the coop. Inevitably, the PML-N is
now engaged in a soul searching exercise that reportedly has so far yielded the
speculation that about seven Senators voted against their party’s mandate,
amongst whom two could be PML-N members. That still does not explain the exact
swing of 11 votes for the Chairman and Deputy Chairman’s slot. Amongst the
PML-N’s allies, Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI-F and the FATA Senators are
suspected of playing a dubious role. Be that as it may, accusations of vote
buying have once again resurrected, much as they did after the Senate elections
and before that in the toppling of the PML-N-led coalition government in
Balochistan, arguably the first shot in Zardari’s campaign of turning the
tables on Nawaz Sharif in the upper house elections. One of the strangest phenomena
of this election for the two top slots of the Senate was the unholy ‘alliance’ of
strange bedfellows in the shape of Imran Khan and Asif Zardari. After all,
until recently Imran Khan considered any cooperation with either the PPP or PML-N
as anathema because of his ‘moral’ crusade against corruption. A strategy of
‘indirect approach’ was adopted by Imran Khan, whereby he ‘surrendered’ his
party’s Senate members to new Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Quddus Bizenjo,
who in turn reportedly ‘delivered’ them to Mr Zardari. Call this political
expediency, pragmatism, opportunism or realism, it smacks of yet another tissue
thin U-turn by Imran Khan. The justification being trotted out that Sanjrani’s
elevation will allay the sense of deprivation of Balochistan and strengthen the
federation still does not explain the support to the PPP’s Mandviwalla.
One is at a loss
to describe the Senate elections. Was it the exercise by the Senators of the
mandate of their respective parties or, as Hasil Bizenjo put it, a ‘free
market’? And if this is the lay of the land, what implications can be drawn for
the impending general elections? Logically, it would seem implausible that the
powers-that-be have gone to all the time and trouble to remove Nawaz Sharif as
prime minister and party head only to see him romp home in capturing a majority
and the top slots of the upper house, not to mention the general elections
(again, a PML-N victory is being predicted on the basis of the popular momentum
a defiant Nawaz Sharif has attained). If that is the game plan, the first two
tasks having been accomplished, what lies ahead vis-à-vis the general
elections? Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar has weighed in with a
‘guarantee’ of fair and free elections through shuffling the administrations
throughout the country. That assurance notwithstanding, thoughts turn to the
credibility of the general elections if some form of manipulation, a la
‘seasonal sparrows’, is contemplated. Neither the upper house nor parliament as
a whole that emerges from this sleight of hand is likely to be stable, posing worries
about how election year will end up and with what so far hidden consequences.
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