The merger is on the cards, but how will it impact PTI’s internal morale

ISLAMABAD: The merging of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) into Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is on the cards and both sides are busy finalizing modalities of the merger, including the post-merger role of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and his team within the PTI.

Some PML-Q leaders confirmed this in background interviews, saying negotiations were now underway on the positions Mr Elahi and his team mates will be given in PTI and the share of party tickets to be given to the group’s candidates in the upcoming elections for the Punjab Assembly as well as the next general elections.

PTI Chairman, Imran Khan, in his recent media interaction has openly claimed that Mr Elahi and his team will be joining the PTI. However, Mr Elahi himself stopped short of confirming this claim, saying that the PTI leadership has come up with an offer and they will place it before the PML-Q’s central executive committee for a final decision.

Veteran politician and an elder cousin of Mr Elahi, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who is also the incumbent head of PML-Q and has differences with Elahi over the latter’s political drift in recent months, reacted to Eahi’s statement by issuing him a show-cause notice for breach of party discipline.

According to the Political Parties Act, the decision concerning the merger of a political party is the prerogative of that party’s head. He also has the powers to expel a party member for indiscipline, legal and constitutional experts say.

Political analysts say that in case Pervaiz Elahi joins the PTI along with his former members of parliament, they will have little to lose as following the dissolution of Punjab Assembly they are no more part of the provincial legislature. As such, they will suffer no immediate losses. Besides, expulsion from the party too is a lengthy legal process.

However, if materialized, the merger will have far-reaching political implications for the Chaudhrys of Gujrat as well as the internal politics of PTI. The move has not only created unrest on the political horizon but has also perturbed some powerful PTI players from Punjab who would not want to see a powerful political family from the province joining PTI and thereby threatening their status and influence.

Sources aware of the developments told Bol News that the driving force behind the merger plan was Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, son of Pervaiz Elahi, who developed close relations with PTI Chairman, Imran Khan, and won his confidence in the recent political turmoil in Punjab in which he, along with his party MPs, made a stand with PTI.

Pervaiz Elahi, who heads the Punjab chapter of PML-Q, had initially agreed to the PML-Q-PTI alliance provided he was offered the slot of the chief minister in case alliance won the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections. Imran Khan was willing to accept this demand on the condition that PML-Q merged with PTI and thus forestalled any internal unrest in the PTI ranks over giving the top provincial slot to a junior partner.

A senior PTI leader and former minister, requesting anonymity, informed Bol News that on the point of merger, both parties are on the same page, and an announcement will be made after all the modalities of the deal are finalised. PML-Q insiders say that in the likely scenario, Pervez Elahi would be appointed as PTI’s Punjab head, and would thereby become the party’s candidate for the chief minister’s slot.

“If materialized, the merger will be a big blow to the Chaudhrys’ family politics, with little chance of a rapprochement between Pervaiz Elahi and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, cousins who have been together in politics for several decades,” says Naeemullah Khan, Assistant Professor at the Capital University of Science and Technology (CUST).

He said that in the new arrangement, both cousins will be contesting against each other in the upcoming elections for the Punjab Assembly, and it will divide their vote bank in their hometown of Gujrat as well as in the adjoining constituencies of Mandi Bahauddin and Lala Moosa.

As regards the reaction to such a merger within the PTI, there appear to be two divergent viewpoints.

Some PTI leaders say that as they were already in a seat-adjustment arrangement with the PML-Q, the merger will have little impact on the party as it will be offering more or less the same share to PML-Q candidates.

But some senior PTI leaders are not happy, and see the merger as amounting to the doling out of priced provincial slots to the newcomers in the party which they say will demoralize the genuine party workers.

Sources in the PTI informed Bol News that some senior and powerful party leaders from Punjab, who were eying the slot of the chief minister, are not happy but don’t have the guts to confront the party chairman. Only time will tell whether Pervaiz Elahi will be able to appease them, they say. Some political analysts are of the view that Pervaiz Elahi knows the art of taking along people having diverse political views. He showed this during his four-month long chief ministership of Punjab when he successfully managed the PTI MPs, they say.

The PTI has also shown openness to absorbing politicians from other groups. For example, during the 2018 elections, while the PTI refused to support Pervez Elahi because he was contesting on a PML-Q ticket, it opened its arms to one of his trusted comrades, Chaudhry Basharat Raja, and gave him the PI ticket after Elahi allowed Raja to accept it.

PTI also allowed Sheikh Rashid Shafique, the nephew of the Awami Muslim League chief, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, to contest by-elections on PTI ticket from a Rawalpindi seat which had been vacated by PTI chief, Imran Khan.