Business Recorder Editorial Nov 5, 2018

Opposition disunity

Since the July 25, 2018 elections, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the JUI-F, has been bending his back to unite the opposition on a single platform with a single agenda: taking on the PTI government brought to power by those polls. The Maulana is more interested than any other political player in seeing the back of this government because he has been ousted from parliament due to his loss of his traditional seat in D I Khan. The problem though is that other opposition parties have their own calculations vis-à-vis the present set up in the wake of the July 25 polls. Not only that, the PPP and PML-N top leadership remains at daggers drawn because of past quarrels. In particular, now that Nawaz Sharif has been disqualified and his shoes as PML-N chief occupied by Shahbaz Sharif, the going has got rougher between the two main opposition parties given Shahbaz’s shrill, rude and unacceptable statements against PPP co-chairperson Asif Zardari when Shahbaz was still Punjab chief minister. The PML-N too may harbour reservations regarding PPP’s rivalry against it, stretching back many decades and having seen more than its fair share of ups and downs. This gulf between the two main opposition parties has meant that Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s shuttling and lobbying has yet to produce the desired results. The current Multi-Party Conference (MPC) the Maulana is trying to organise is the fifth such since the July polls. Four have been called by him, one by Shahbaz Sharif. The first MPC called by the JUI-F soon after the elections failed to agree on the MMA’s point of view that given the allegations and accusations of rigging in the polls, no opposition member of the National Assembly (NA) should take oath. In the second conference too, no decision could be taken on this demand and in the third a majority rejected the idea. The fourth MPC called by Shahbaz only agreed to support the PPP’s presidential candidate Aitzaz Ahsan but little else in terms of forging closer ties to give the ruling PTI a tough time in parliament given the opposition’s combined strength. Now when the fifth MPC looms, there is still little sign of unity of purpose in the opposition’s ranks.

Reports regarding the top leadership of the PML-N’s huddle in Parliament House speak of Nawaz advocating a ‘softly, softly’ approach. Given the fumbling on display in the first two months of the government, his argument appears to rest on a strategy of letting the government expose itself as it attempts to come to grips with the country’s problems, chief amongst them being handling of the economy. Nawaz does not want a premature activism of a united opposition to give the government the excuse that it is not being able to perform because of the opposition’s campaign against it. In other words, Nawaz is advocating patience, letting the government sink further under the weight of its incompetence, and waiting for a more opportune moment to challenge the incumbents. This implies that any thought of a street agitation is a definite no-no for the foreseeable future. However, because of the distance between the PPP and PML-N leadership (neither will attend the upcoming MPC), the advantage by default is going to Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and his government. Parliament is currently all but non-functional, with almost daily walkouts by the opposition and the Speaker of the NA being unable to form the required parliamentary committees because of a standoff on the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee, which the opposition holds should, as has been the emerging convention over the last decade, go to the Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif. Since the PM has personally ruled this out, the impasse continues. While this causes problems for the government’s legislative agenda, a united opposition would be in a very strong position to take on the treasury benches. Whether this will transpire in the near or more distant future may depend on how far the targeting of the PML-N and the PPP proceeds at the hands of the government (via NAB, etc). With its unremitting campaign to put alleged corrupt people from the opposition behind bars, ironically the government may well turn out to be the only hope for the unity in the opposition’s ranks so beloved of Maulana Fazlur Rehman.