Defected MPs’ alliance speaks of hung parliament

ISLAMABAD: The widely-touted plan indicating emergence of a host of independent candidates as winners in the upcoming general elections stood reinforced in a big way after eight lawmakers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) left it in one go, serving it a major blow.

All of them did not announce to join any political party but formed a separate group to work for carving out of a province in south Punjab. This left no doubt in any mind that they will contest the polls on the platform of the new entity called “South Punjab Province Mahaaz”. All of them ironically never raised even a meek voice in the national or Punjab assemblies for almost five years to have another province in the Saraiki belt. They are not known to have moved a constitutional amendment or even a non-binding resolution to achieve this objective. Rather, their presence was never noticed on the floor as they never spoke their mind.

The announcement of their resignations when the assemblies have just a few weeks’ lives left appeared preposterous. They enjoyed the whole term and walked out of the legislatures at the fag end of the tenure.

The strategy, which has been frequently discussed everywhere for quite some time, is to have a few dozens of independent victors, who would be available to whittle down the chances of the single largest party to form governments at the federal level and in Punjab.

Such winners will be teamed up with other political parties like the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), getting a few seats, in a bid to form majority blocs in the federal and Punjab assemblies tobe able to elect the prime minister and chief minister not from any major political force but from this lot.

The extensively-believed focus of the onslaught is on Punjab, which is the stronghold of the PML-N. All the stratagems are directed at cutting down its electoral prospects. Whether or not these plans will succeed will be a different story because it will be a parliamentary poll, which is not easy to manage, and not the Senate election, which was conveniently manipulated.

How far these defectors will be able to sell their slogan of a separate province in south Punjab to the electorate of the area is anybody’s guess. If the recent history is any guide, this catchphrase has never attracted voters. Had it done so, the PPP, which vigorously raised this issue months before the 2013 polls, would have swept the elections at least in Saraiki region. But what it got in return needs no elaboration. Similarly, some politicians from the southern area had been pressing this demand for decades but had never been able to win a local election.

PPP chief Bilawal has now again forcefully called for a separate province in south Punjab during his visit to the area. He will be thus countering the new faction on the same premise. However, most of the deserters are counted as “electables” because of their personal influence in their respective constituencies for different reasons. Some of them were also elected as independents in the 2013 elections, and later joined the PML-N. However all of them were active members of the PML-Q during Pervez Musharraf’s era. They are known for changing political parties before every polls.

There was not a single surprise defector because the names of all of them have been frequently mentioned over the past a few months particularly after deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Supreme Court-imposed ouster on July 28, 2017 and the subsequent accountability process he has been subjected to.

Interestingly, while parting company with the PML-N, these figures did not attack it severely, as is generally done by the departing lot, maybe because they did not want to run out of options should the election result turned out to be against the plan that is underway.

Most of those who have now abandoned the PML-N also have serious issues in their constituencies posed by their rivals. The PML-N was aware of their plan for quite some time. It made efforts to prevail upon them but to no avail. However, it has other options in their constituencies to sponsor candidates.

The group named former prime minister Balakh Sher Mazari, around 90 now, as its chief, who, because of his age, will not be able to campaign much for the movement. Even at the joint presser, he briefly spoke. When President Ghulam Ishaq Khan had dismissed the second Nawaz Sharif government on April 18, 1993 using his discretionary powers under the eighth amendment, Mazari was installed as the caretaker premier. But he had to go after the Supreme Court had restored the government as well as the National Assembly in May that year. Looking at the movement of the “electables” or to be precise their departure from the PML-N, there is nothing unusual because such shifting always take place on the eve of every elections.