QWP gets more attractive berths in KP cabinet

ISLAMABAD: While rejoining the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government after a 20-month break, Aftab Sherpao-led Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) has got more, important and attractive cabinet berths.
Perhaps for the first time, a full-fledged minister belonging to the QWP and not the party that leads the provincial coalition, has been appointed as KP home and tribal affairs minister. This slot has always been kept by the successive chief ministers.
The QWP maintained its earlier numerical strength in the cabinet, meaning it now got four of its nominees inducted in Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak’s team that it previously had. Its chief’s son, Sikandar Sherpao, is the perennial minister whenever the senior Sherpao has got a share in government.
Last time, the QWP nominees held the portfolios of communications, labour and manpower, environment and communications and works. Now, they have secured the ministries of mines and minerals; home and tribal affairs; irrigation and labour and manpower while its one adviser and one special assistant to the chief ministers are yet to be allocated the portfolios.
Except Sikandar Sherpao, the QWP has brought in new faces – Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli, Arshad Umarzai and Karim Khan. Previously, Bakht Baidar and Ibrar Hussain were its nominees in the KP cabinet apart from Yusuf Ayub, who had been shown the door by Khattak after his disqualification by the Supreme Court for possessing a fake educational degree.
It has not been explained by any leader of the QWP or Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as to what led the two sides to the induction of the new ministers when they had been thrown out of the cabinet twenty months back on grave corruption charges. However, it is a fact that the PTI and QWP had been engaged in talks for cooperation for months and had finally sealed an agreement in September.
Although Khattak’s renewed efforts for breaking bread with the QWP were backed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan, his old camaraderie with Aftab Sherpao also worked in clinching the agreement. Once, Khattak was a minister in the Sherpao-led cabinet in KP. Both are considered shrewd politicians of KP and masters of realpolitik. It was only because of Khattak’s exclusive smartness and astuteness that he never agreed with his party boss to let the members of the KP Assembly resign when Imran Khan had quit the national, Sindh and Punjab assemblies to intensify his sit-in protest last year. Khattak cleverly deflated such move for giving his own cogent reasons to his party.
With QWP’s return, the chief minister has solidified his position vis-à-vis the opposition he faces from certain circles of the KP chapter of the PTI. The ouster of the QWP ministers from the cabinet happened with a bang while their return has been quite a smooth affair that ruffled no feathers.
After his sacking by Khattak in November 2013, Bakht Baidar Khan had sent a legal notice to Imran Khan for hurling corruption allegations at him, and demanded an apology. In December, he filed Rs1 billion defamation suit against him. QWP leader Tariq Khan now says the case is not a big issue and Baidar would withdraw it as he had approached the court in his personal capacity.
While ousting the QWP cabinet members, Imran Khan had stated that their party was given two warnings about corruption of its two ministers. “However, it chose to tolerate their corrupt practices and instead showed its displeasure at the corruption being pointed out by boycotting the KP cabinet meetings. The PTI was elected on the anti-corruption mandate and there was zero-tolerance for any form of corruption in the party ranks. This should be a clear warning for all our ministers and MPs and PTI cannot have as a coalition partner any party that tolerates corruption.”
At the time, the QWP had refuted these allegations. The PTI did not file any corruption case against the sacked QWP ministers despite its accusations.
The accord comprises seven points and says both parties mutually agree to enter into an open-ended coalition and strategic partnership as a part of which the QWP accepted the PTI offer to join the KP government. It also carried an annexure detailing 13 points from the QWP, which the PTI said it fully agrees to.