Countdown to Nowhere

A game of nerves is on with both the PDM and the PTI cutting each other off even on trifles

Islamabad: Following the dissolution of both Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa assemblies, the Shehbaz Sharif government has changed its policy in a way that appears to suggest that it wants to further escalate the country’s political turmoil – even at the cost of the state of Pakistan.

In a surprise move, Speaker National Assembly, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, who had been delaying the acceptance of resignations tendered by parliamentarians of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) since April, has now accepted around 70 of those resignations. He has done this at a time when the PTI leadership has expressed its willingness to return to the Parliament. The overall political mood in the country appears ominous, given the intensifying polarization between the key political players. As the beleaguered coalition government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) wants to cling on to power by hook or by crook, many Pakistanis are looking towards the state institutions, especially the Pakistan Army, to help resolve this mega-political crisis in line with the aspirations of the people.

As both the political and economic crises get from bad to worse, the pressure of public expectations is mounting on the country’s new military leadership to play its due role in clearing this mess and forcing political players – covertly or overtly – to agree on a roadmap to bring some political stability, which is seen as a prerequisite for the revival of Pakistan’s ailing economy. With each passing day, the stakes are getting higher and the situation getting more and more complex and complicated. Yet, there are no signs that the powers that be are getting ready to intervene on behalf of the people of Pakistan.

However, amidst reports that the ousted former premier Nawaz Sharif is preparing to launch an anti-establishment propaganda drive to revive the sinking political fortunes of his faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, things are fast heading towards the point of no-return. The PML-N or at least the section close to Nawaz and his daughter Maryam wants to destabilize and derail the system to prevent general elections in the country. And before derailing the system, they want to make sure that Pakistan’s economy is brought to its knees, which is all set to become a national security challenge for the country. Against this backdrop, the PTI is trying to push the country towards general elections and the PDM prevents them, which has created a grinding logjam which the political players are unwilling to break.

In this context, one should not be shocked that the PDM chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, announced that the alliance will not field candidates on the seats vacated by the PTI in the subsequent by-elections. He said the reason for this move will be announced later.

Since its en masse resignations from the National Assembly on 11 April 2022, the PTI leadership has been on the roads, campaigning against the PDM alliance and terming it as an instrument of the “regime change conspiracy” against the PTI government.

While this was going on, the PDM government was consistently asking the PTI parliamentarians to return to the Parliament. Speaker National Assembly, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, refused to accept their resignations on grounds that none of them approached him in person to express her or his desire to quit the parliament, and submit a handwritten resignation, steps that are required under the rules of the parliament.

It was believed at that time that if the fragile coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif accepted those resignations, it would necessitate the holding of by-elections on 123 seats, which was not a feasible proposition.

On its part, the PTI continued to insist on the acceptance of those resignations.

The PDM government did accept 11 of those resignations on 28 July, but many say they carefully chose members of those constituencies where the PTI’s victory margin had been minimal. When by-elections to those constituencies were called, PTI Chairman Imran Khan chose to contest on eight of those seats, and won seven of them.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notified Imran Khan’s victory on all the seven seats a couple of days back, and even if Imran Khan decides to take oath and join the parliament, six of the seven seats he won would fall vacant again.

As such, the ECP has to hold by-elections on 77 National Assembly seats, while full-fledged elections to the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) will also become due over the next three months.

Political analysts say that holding of by-elections to 77 National Assembly seats and two out of four provincial assemblies dissolved by the PTI governments there will push the country into a general elections’ mode, and ultimately the government will have to go for general instead of piecemeal elections.

General Secretary of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Ahsan Iqbal, said that there was no doubt that his party wanted PTI to return to the Parliament, but after dissolving two provincial assemblies, the PTI’s expressed desire to rejoin the National Assembly was only meant to create chaos.

Sources in the PDM informed Bol News that actually, the PDM coalition partners don’t want to dole out the slot of Chairman Public Accounts Committee to a PTI nominee, and that was the reason behind the sudden acceptance of their resignations.

These sources further said that the PDM leadership is afraid of Imran Khan’s popularity and doesn’t want to go into early elections. So, it would like to vitiate an already chaotic political atmosphere, and push things towards some kind of a deadlock where elections could be put off for a certain period. It could do this through a constitutional provision, such as imposing economic emergency and bringing in technocrats to steer the country out of the economic crisis.

Senior Vice-President of PTI, Fawad Chaudhry, cautioned that any attempt to prolong the incumbent government’s rule would be resisted. He admitted that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donor agencies are usually reluctant to deal with interim governments, but if all political stakeholders put their weight behind the interim government, then there would be no issues.

He reiterated his party position that political stability is the prerequisite for steering the country out of the prevailing economic mess, and immediate holding of general elections is the only way to restore political stability in the country.

Legal experts say that if the PDM government wants to prevent PTI from taking over the slots of the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and Chairman Public Accounts Committee, then it has to ensure that the PTI’s strength in the National Assembly is pushed below 16, the figure which brought the incumbent Leader of the Opposition, Raja Riaz, to this seat. And it is the prerogative of the opposition leader to appoint the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

So, the PDM government accepted all of the PTI’s resignations in order to prevent it from taking these positions. Still, there are 43 PTI MNAs whose resignations have not yet been accepted. The speaker may accept these ones too if it becomes apparent that PTI is serious in returning to the parliament.

And since the two sides failed to name the caretaker chief ministers of Punjab and KP, they will now be chosen by the ECP from a list of four names proposed by the leaders of the treasury and the opposition.