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Saturday, April 05, 2008
By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: Major coalition partners of the PPP – the PML-N and the ANP – are alarmed at the "surprises" sprang up by Asif Ali Zardari. However, Nawaz Sharif seems a bit cautious and is perhaps waiting for the formation of the PML-N government in the Punjab before reacting to Zardari's moves.
Background interviews with the party leaders of these two political camps reveal that on the dramatic changes taking place on the political scene of Pakistan, in the name of national reconciliation, none of these coalition partners were taken into confidence.
"There is a growing perception in our ranks that we are being trapped," a senior PML-N leader said on condition of anonymity. As the powerful PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari keeps on springing political surprises for his shaken coalition partners, one after the other, it is being asked in political circles in Islamabad whether Nawaz Sharif and Asfandyar Wali were being outsmarted by Zardari's moves.
Senior leaders of the PML-N and ANP candidly admit that Zardari had emerged as a pragmatic politician these days, putting them and their leaders in a tight corner, at least for the time being. They said they were left with few options but to toe the PPP’s line, particularly when crucial decisions were to be made within and outside parliament.
The growing perceptions in these two political camps is that after making Nawaz and Asfandyar to fall in line by making them join the cabinet, Zardari had now made it difficult for both of them to react to some of his controversial moves.
These sources said even the ANP camp is not feeling comfortable with some moves of Zardari for understandable reasons, including the swift and sudden hand-shake and declaration of brotherhood with the MQM.
PML-N leaders admit that the first major surprise Zardari sprang was when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani dramatically stood up in the National Assembly to make a shocking request to the PML-Q to give him a vote of confidence.
The PML-N leaders were not taken into confidence before the PPP quietly struck a deal with the PML-Q leaders in the name of reconciliation. Perhaps in the heat of his emotions, Prime Minister Gilani forgot that none other than Zardari had declared the PML-Q as "Qatil League" of Benazir Bhutto in Naudero on December 30.
Zardari sprang another surprise when he offered an olive branch to the MQM by sending a PPP delegation to visit its headquarters. But, the PML-N tried to ignore this extraordinary visit by arguing that if the PPP wanted an alliance with the MQM in the greater interests of peace of Sindh, it would not object.
But, the PML-N and the ANP had no idea that Zardari had more surprises up his sleeve. The real shock came when Zardari went to the residence of Altaf Hussain and exchanged traditional Sindhi caps with Farooq Sattar. This extraordinary exchange was more forceful and symbolic and could be an advance warning of gradual inclusion of the MQM in the federal cabinet.
There were some reports that Zardari had at that stage talked to Nawaz Sharif and explained the situation. A real shocker for the PML-N and the ANP came when Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar came on television to show his love and affection for President Pervez Musharraf and called him a national asset, expressing his party's desire to work with him.
Yet another surprise has been when the PPP ministers dropped hints that the deposed judges might be made to appear before parliamentary committees before they could be allowed to resume their posts.
PML-N sources believe that now no doubt is left in the minds of the policy-makers that sooner or later, Zardari and the PML-Q would join hands at the Centre and in the Punjab. In case the Nawaz camp quits the cabinet on the issue of the deposed judges, a PPP-PML-Q alliance will save the PPP government and may finally bail out the troubled President Musharraf, to the satisfaction of his friends abroad.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
