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India-Pakistan
Pak Muslim League factions discuss reunifying
2002-04-13
  • PML (J) and PML (N) have decided to reunify, with the possibility of PML (F) also joining them. An agreement to this effect was reached at during a meeting between PML(N) Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq and PML(J) President Chaudhry Hamid Nasir Chattha, here on Friday. The move appeared to have been launched after the recent meeting of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), chaired by Chattha in Islamabad, which was divided over the question of supporting or opposing the referendum meant to elect Gen Pervez Musharraf as president for five more years after the October general elections.

    The majority of the GDA participants had even proposed that the member parties should join the ARD while others opposed it and threatened to break away if referendum was not supported.

    PML(QA) earlier launched an effort for reunification of all factions, excluding the PML(N), and a party team met Pir Pagaro, chief of the PML(F), and Chattha. However, that meeting met with failure as both of them rejected the proposal, criticising the PML(QA) for hobnobbing with the army regime by ditching their political rivals. The PML(QA) not only abandoned the efforts for reunification ever since but also shut the doors of future negotiations with both these factions.
    Pakistan Muslim League is fragmented into ego-based factions tied to various leaders with varying degrees of rivalry. PML (QA) appears to be in Musharraf's camp - he recently gave a speech wearing a turban. PML (N) is the Nawaz Sharif faction, and Perv ripped him in a speech the other other day, apparent recognition that there won't be an alliance there, or a play on his anticorruption theme. They're kind of aligning with the religious loons, took the government to court over jugged al-Qaeda members and opposed Perv's Afghan policies. Qazi, has been beating them with the same corruption stick, by the way, so they may have no friends at all. PML(Q) is in Perv's corner, so they'll stay away from the reunification process. PML(N) appears to be the most influential faction, followed by PML(J).
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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