Islamabad, March 13: Amid rising tensions with the opposition PML-N and coalition partner MQM, the ruling PPP has made the most intimate contact to date with the second largest opposition party, PML-Q, sparking fresh speculations about the probability of cooperation between the two major parties.
Sources close to the People’s Party told Dawn on Saturday that President Asif Ali Zardari had made an offer to the Pakistan Muslim League-Q to join the federal government.
The PML-Q had told President Zaradri that it would reply to his offer to join the federal government at the end of this month, the sources added.
The invitation was extended during a meeting at the Presidency on Saturday.
The meeting came on the heels of a dinner Mr Zardari hosted for the PML-Q leadership the previous night.
A spokesman for President Zardari described the get-together as “ice-breaking”.
The PML-Q has 55 seats in the National Assembly.
Pakistan Muslim League-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain led his party’s team at the talks and at the dinner with Mr Zardari, who is also co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party. Former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi and son Moonis Elahi were also present.
Other members of the PML-Q delegation were: Wasim Sajjad, the Leader of Opposition in the Senate, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, Amir Muqam, Kamil Ali Agha, Riaz Hussain Pirzada and Ghous Baksh Maher.
President Zardari was assisted by Punjab PPP president Imtiaz Safdar Waraich, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa president Zahir Shah, political secretary to the PPP co-chairman Rukhsana Bangash, MNA Fouzia Habib, spokesman Farhatullah Babar and Dr Qayyum Soomro.
The get-together was the highest-level contact between the former bitter foes, which seemed to have now crossed a psychological barrier to a future embrace that could help both of them fight their political tormentors.
Both sides said things could move forward, although they would not specify how far.
Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar described the development, which came in the midst of fresh political tensions in both Punjab and Sindh, as “positive” and “breaking of the ice”.
In Punjab, the PML-N has earned the wrath of both PPP and PML-Q by throwing out the former from the coalition government and winning over a breakaway “Unification bloc” of the PML-Q to ensure a majority in the provincial assembly.
The PPP has also faced occasional problems with the MQM, which has threatened to quit the ruling coalition in Sindh, if its grievances about the “incendiary” remarks of provincial home minister Zufliqar Mirza were not removed.
Both the PPP and PML-Q confirmed that the meeting at the presidency was the result of hectic “backdoor diplomacy” carried out by some members from both sides for the past many months, and a PML-Q leader said his party had no option but to go with the PPP after facing “humiliation” at the hands of the Sharif brothers. They recalled that last year the Sharifs had cancelled a luncheon invitation to the Chaudhrys at Raiwind at the eleventh hour.
Mr Babar said the PPP saw Chaudhry Shujaat’s remarks at the meeting that the PML-Q would not be a party to any attempt to destabilise the government as “positive”. Moreover, he added, Chaudhry Shujaat had assured the PPP leadership that they wanted the present democratic dispensation to complete its mandatory term of five years.
The president’s spokesman expressed the hope that the cooperation and contacts between the two parties would continue in future.
Riaz Pirzada, who is PML-Q’s chief whip in the National Assembly, said the party had given a mandate to Chaudhry Shujaat to hold negotiations with the PPP and find ways for cooperation.
He praising President Zardari’s “reconciliation policy”, saying that unlike PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, the PPP had kept its doors open to all parties. “It is a good political move.”
Mr Pirzada criticised the Sharif brothers for adopting “confrontational politics” and alienating every political party.
NOTE OF DISAPPROVAL: Meanwhile, sources in the PPP told Dawn that certain elements within the party had disapproved of the leadership’s decision to befriend a party like the PML-Q against which “we put up a struggle during the days of Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf”.
Political observers, however, believe that this group will not be in a position to influence a decision on a rapprochement between PPP and PML-Q.
MUTTAHIDA FACTOR: A source privy to the PPP_PML (Q) meetings said President Zaradri had made the offer in an attempt to neutralise a ‘repeated threats’ by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) to withdraw its support to the federal government.
“The PPP leadership is now sick of the MQM’s attitude and is interested in exploring other options at hand,” a senior PPP leader told Dawn.
He said although the PML-Q had so far not come out with a “positive response”, the offer by People’s Party would force the MQM to take a decision once and for all about staying within the ruling coalition or parting ways with it.
“We cannot afford a daily nagging by the MQM over one issue or the other,” he said.
Mr Zardari also assured the Chaudhrys of Gujrat that if they declared support to the PPP, the government would take the party along in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and Balochistan as well.“The Chaudhrys have told Zardari that they will respond to his offer in a couple of weeks after discussing it with their MNAs, MPAs and ticket-holders,” a PML-Q leader said.
He said the PPP and PML-Q leadership had agreed that in Punjab both the parties would continue playing the role of opposition and work together to “embarrass” the Shahbaz Sharif-led government.
———Agencies