Seven parties make seat adjustments to outdo PML-N

LAHORE: As many as seven opposition parties have decided to form a grand political alliance against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the Punjab ahead of the local bodies elections.
The alliance members include the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM).
They have decided that they will not only back each other but also make seat adjustments. The decision was made in a meeting of the high-level leadership of all the seven parties in Lahore at Mian Manzoor Wattoo’s residence.
The political leaders demanded immediate resignation of controversial members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The meeting was attended by southern Punjab PPP President Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, Punjab PTI Organiser Chaudhry Sarwar, JI’s Liaquat Baloch, PAT’s Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, JUP’s Ejaz Hashmi, SIC’s Jawadul Hassan Kazmi and Asad Abbas Naqvi of the MWM.
The meeting was held at a time when PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is on a visit to Lahore. Briefing the media after the meeting, Wattoo said the participants expressed grave concern over the plight of farmers, saying that the government had devastated them.
The parties decided to express solidarity with the farmers and take part in their struggle till the acceptance of their demands. Wattoo said political leaders supported traders who had been urging the government to withdraw the Withholding Tax. He said traders were already in trouble due to the irrational GST and expensive electricity.
He said the leaders urged the ECP members to step down because there was no justification for their stay in office after the Judicial Commission’s report and the recent decisions by election tribunals. He said their presence would make the local bodies elections controversial that would bode ill for the whole system.
He said the leaders believe that conduct of elections soon after Muharram indicates mala fide intentions of the government. He said the participants expressed reservations over the recent allocation of development funds by the government for all constituencies and described it as pre-poll rigging. They urged the ECP to take notice of it. He said they favoured disqualifying government candidates if they were found guilty of using the development funds in their constituencies.
He said the participants urged the ECP to ensure neutral teams for the elections because the Punjab administration was behaving like the B-team of the federal government. This aspect must be taken care of otherwise the whole electoral process would be in jeopardy, he added.
He said the participants paid rich tributes to the Pakistan Army which had defended the country in 1965 against the Indian aggression and was now fighting terrorism and extremism, gaining significant successes in the Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
Responding to media questions, Chaudhry Sarwar said there was no moral justification for the ECP members to stay on as they had become highly controversial. He said the meeting supported the state institutions in the war against terrorism, adding that corruption should also be handled evenhandedly because it was also a type of terrorism.
Liaquat Baloch maintained that it was beyond comprehension to go for the elections without introducing electoral reforms, adding that it had been decided to take part in the elections so that the field should not be left open for the government. He urged elimination of corruption because it posed a serious threat to the national security.
He reiterated that the opposition would not leave the farmers community alone and would stand by them in these testing times.
Ejaz Hashmi, underscoring the importance of tackling corruption, said the drive should not focus on a single party. He said democracy and Pakistan were inseparable and its edifice must be protected from all dangers.
Gandapur said the demand of the political parties for the ECP re-constitution vindicated the point of view of his party. He said the Judicial Commission’s report on the Model Town incident must be made public, adding that a JIT should be constituted after taking his party into confidence. He said the decision of holding the LB elections soon after Muharram-ul-Harram indicated the mala fides of the government.
The Sunni Ittehad Council and the Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen endorsed all the meeting decisions. Earlier, Wattoo thanked the leaders for attending the meeting on a short notice. The leaders lauded Wattoo for organising the meeting in view of the problems people were facing.
Ahmad Hassan adds from Islamabad: PTI’s joining the seven-party alliance to try to defeat the ruling PML-N in Punjab is a first big shift in its uncompromising politics and going solo so far. Imran Khan boasted in his latest speech at Hafizabad the other day that his party had successfully contested the local bodies polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against a conglomeration of three parties and still won.
The agreement with the PPP on local government polls in Punjab is seen in the context of PTI’s claim of confronting all the parties, especially PPP, because of the corruption tagged to its leadership.
An immediate question that arises out of the PTI Punjab move is whether this trait would also prevail on central levels and whether PTI will also join hands with the PPP, leaving aside its strong opposition of the party condemning it as a bunch of corrupt people.
Ali Muhammad Khan, a PTI MNA, is of the opinion that local bodies elections are different from the national or provincial assemblies elections as these are confined to different locations and parties decide on seat to seat basis. Talking to the News, Khan however, expressed his doubts his party could enter into a broad opposition alliance with a party whose leadership was tainted due to corruption. He said while numerous parties confronted the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the just-concluded local bodies polls, the PTI also made some adjustments to get the maximum benefit.
This cannot be said at this stage as how much the PTI could benefit politically from becoming part of a seven-party electoral alliance for the upcoming local government polls to penetrate the Punjab politics but it certainly indicates at its leadership getting the maturity level which it lacked in making political decisions so far. “Sanity and seriousness is becoming a trait of the PTI in which former governor Punjab Chaudhry Sarwar is playing a pivotal role,” a disgruntled party leader said. Earlier, Imran Khan had taken a few more steps like changing his mind on staging a Dharna outside the ECP and turning it into a mere protest rally.
A former PTI information secretary Akbar S Babar is of the opinion that the new move is detrimental to the party’s fundamental ideology, which is based on no compromise with corrupt politicians and political parties at any cost. Talking to the News, Babar said the PTI right now is dominated by the new elements representing the status quo which is against the party’s ideology. “The so-called occupation group has put the party on the path of traditional politics from its politics of change,” he quipped.
Ali Muhammad Khan, however, justifies the new move to which he calls seat-to-seat adjustment, a requirement in the local bodies polls brushing aside the impression that the party has gone through a big shift in its politics. He said the core leadership of the party comprises patriotic persons who keep the party’s ideals high and compromise for the larger interest but do not compromise on principles.