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| India-Pakistan |
| PPP, MMA maneuver to form govt |
| 2002-10-15 |
| Pakistan's main opposition parties made their first formal contacts on Monday to discuss cooperation to form the next government after last week's election produced the most split National Assembly in Pakistan's history. But political sources said the talks between the Pakistan People's Party and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal of six religio-political parties and their separate meetings with the leaders of other parties exploratory to be followed by more contacts in the coming days of expected hectic political activity in Islamabad. This should be interesting — and each and every separate combination represents a gain for the U.S., if Powell and crew are on top of things... The day's most important event was a breakfast meeting between Makhdoom Amin Fahim, head of PPP's electoral formation People's Party Parliamentarians and Jamaat-i-Islami chief and deputy MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed. Mr Fahim, a possible PPP prime ministerial candidate who plans to meet all parties in seeking "a government of national consensus", also held talks with his party's former close ally Hamid Nasir Chattha, who head his own small faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-J). PPP's alliance with Qazi's faction(s) would be held together only by its opposition to military rule, an opposition that stems from different roots: Qazi thinks the military and the fundos are a natural alliance, with the fundos in charge. Benazir's unhappy with military rule because they hanged Pop, and with the PPP's propensity for dipping into the till, she could take the high jump, too. She's under indictment, hubby's in jug, and she can't come home until the military's on a leash. "The talks were exploratory, preliminary... on what are their expectations and what are our expectations," a PPP source said of the Fahim-Qazi meeting. Neither side would give details of the meeting, but the PPP source said the present discussions were taking place on the question of a coalition that could form the next government under an elected prime minister and the fate of the controversial constitutional amendments decreed by President Pervez Musharraf. If Perv can toss you just for a little corruption, what's the point of being in the gummint? The PML(Q) has emerged as the largest single party in the National Assembly by grabbing 76 of the 272 seats of the 342-seat National Assembly contested in Thursday's election followed by PPP's 76 and MMA's 45. But even with its smaller allies such as the 12-seat National Alliance and expected support from independents and women members to be elected on reserved seats, it will remain far short of a simple majority needed to elect the new prime minister. PML-Q, last time I looked — and these things can change without warning — was supporting Perv and vice versa, and was nick-named the King's Party. On the other hand, the Jamaat chief also held meetings with Raja Zafarul Haq, chairman of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) and Sardar Farooq Leghari, former president and Millat Party chief. Both seem to fit into the has-been category now... The backing of 45-seat MMA could improve the chances of either PML(Q) or PPP to head the new government, whose existence would depend on maintaining a delicate balance in a fractured parliament. The MMA leaders are due to meet in Islamabad on Wednesday to decide their future course of action, which is likely to include the alliance's conditions for support to a governing coalition. That'll include lots of provisions for shariah and making faces at the Merkins and the Indos... Also on Wednesday, the PML(Q) central committee is meeting in Islamabad and the PPP-led 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy is meeting in Lahore to discuss future plans. They'd be better off allying with each other against the MMA, but I'll betcha they won't... While both the PML(Q) and PPP - despite its protests against alleged vote-rigging - are staking their claims to form the government, the MMA appears interested only in leading the governments in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, where it is the largest party in the provincial assemblies. That's the core territory of Greater Pashtunistan. They can do some real consolidatin there... The PML(Q), which has named former interior minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as its parliamentary leader after its president lost election for both seats he contested in the Punjab province, is trying to win over the MMA on the basis of past alliances between a united PML and religious parties. Embarrassing when your intended PM doesn't manage to keep his seat... If there's a government formed that supports Perv, then we're in the position of backing him against the fundos — eventually he's going to realize that he can't coexist with them, nor can the military, unless it wants to be at Qazi's beck and call. Weakening the fundos weakens the support base for the Qaeda gang, with Perv becoming more dependent on us. If the MMA manages to dominate the government, it'll demand that Pakland stop cooperating with the U.S. That's a briarpatch for us, because getting tossed negates the "alliance" we've had with this strange bedfellow for the past year. The more natural alignment for us, as many have commented over the course of the past year, is with Indjah, despite its flirtation with hinduvta. The Great Game then becomes India's to lose, as Pakland assumes its rightful place as Terror Central, with a correspondingly harsh reaction from the U.S. Qazi's not going to mind the Terror Central thing, since he thinks the Islamists are going to win in the long run and he's going to get to be khalif and meet whoever's king of Soddy Arabia on equal terms. We'll have to make it our business to see that he doesn't. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 PPP and MMA? No chance! There is a growing polarization between outward looking segments of Pakistan - in Sindh for example - and the stone age insulars of the NWFP. The latter know how to use guns; they just don't know how to make them. The former can do both. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2002-10-16 02:13:05 |