Wednesday, February 21, 2024

2 major parties reach power sharing deal to form next gov't in Pakistan

Shehbaz Sharif nominated as prime minister while Asif Ali Zardari will be candidate for presidency

Islam Uddin |21.02.2024 -


ISLAMABAD

After week-long negotiations, two political parties in Pakistan agreed on a power-sharing deal to form the next government.

Announcing the deal, former Foreign Minister and Chairman of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that his party will support former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as candidate for prime minister.

"Our negotiation teams have reached consensus and the numbers of Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have been completed and now we are in a position to form a federal government," he told reporters during a news conference late Tuesday night.

His father and former President Asif Ali Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif accompanied Bilawal.

Bilawal added that the PML-N would support Asif Ali Zardari for president.

He did not give further details about key portfolios in the government.

To form a government with a simple majority, a party requires 134 direct seats, which can be counted as 169 MPs after allocating members to reserved seats for women and religious minorities in the National Assembly.

Although independent candidates backed by jailed ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 93 seats, the highest number of MPs, the party could not form a coalition with other parties to reach a simple majority.

The PTI on Monday announced that its affiliated independent candidates will merge into the Sunni Ittehad Council, a small religiopolitical party, in the National and provincial assemblies to get its share in reserve seats of women and minorities.

On Tuesday, Khan said the "mother of all rigging" took place in the Feb. 8 general elections and demanded that "the real mandate and will of the public should be honored."

In a message through her sister Aleema Khan, who met him at Adiala jail in the northeastern garrison city of Rawalpindi on Tuesday, Khan said that X was blocked in the country to “hide the real results.”

The social media platform has remained restricted in Pakistan since Saturday night. The country's telecommunication regulator has offered no reason for the restriction.


Pakistan Old-Guard Parties to Form Coalition, Thwarting Imran Khan

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari speaks during a press conference in Islamabad on Feb. 13, 2024. 
Aamir Qureshi—AFP/Getty Images


Pakistan’s two old-guard political parties agreed to form a government, a move that breaks an almost two-week deadlock and likely keeps jailed former premier Imran Khan’s party out of government even though it won the most seats in the country’s contentious election.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party will join in a coalition with the Sharif clan’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Bhutto Zardari said at a joint news conference in Islamabad close to midnight on Tuesday. Shehbaz Sharif will be prime minister while Bhutto Zardari’s father, Asif Ali Zardari, will be president.

Read More: Pakistan Can Keep Imran Khan Out of Power, but It Can’t Keep His Popularity Down

“Both the parties have the numbers to form a government,” Bhutto Zardari, 35, the son of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, said, with Sharif next to him.

The announcement will probably end days of uncertainty after the inconclusive Feb. 8 election, in which Khan’s candidates, running as independents, defied the odds by winning the most seats but fell short of clinching an outright majority. Rounds of negotiations followed, culminating in the announcement Tuesday night.

Investors will be watching what this means for Pakistan’s markets, which have been rocked after the polls. The benchmark stock index has fallen for six of eight trading days since Feb. 8.

Questions also remain about how Khan’s supporters will respond. His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party held protests across Pakistan over the weekend against alleged vote-rigging. Credence was added to their claims when a Pakistani official said he had manipulated the vote count and the Election Commission of Pakistan was also involved. The ECP, which oversaw the polls, and the interim government of Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, deny allegations of rigging.

Read More: Pakistan’s Military Used Every Trick to Sideline Imran Khan—and Failed. Now What?

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, remained inaccessible for a third day across Pakistan Tuesday, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks, as authorities blocked to thwart the protesters.

A new administration will have to shore up an economy battered by Asia’s fastest inflation, running at 28%, and negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund after the current program expires in April. Shehbaz Sharif has said that will be one of his first priorities if he becomes prime minister.

This isn’t the first time the two old-guard family-controlled parties have come together. They spearheaded a coalition after Khan was ousted in April 2022 and ruled the country for about 16 months. Shehbaz was prime minister, while Bhutto Zardari was his foreign minister.

During that period, Bhutto Zardari’s party appeared to distance itself from the economic reforms carried out by the Sharif government, including raising fuel prices.

For this year’s election, the two parties contested as rivals but later agreed to hold talks to “save the country from political instability,” according to Sharif.

The deadline for holding a parliament session for forming the new government is Feb. 29, Murtaza Solangi, the country’s interim information minister, has said.

Pakistan government grants financial autonomy to its Intelligence Bureau

The IB division will work directly under the Prime Minister with its office to be established in the cabinet division, according to a notification

PTI Islamabad Published 21.02.24,


Pakistan’s caretaker government has fulfilled a longstanding demand of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) by granting it the status of a full-fledged division, allowing it complete financial autonomy, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The decision was taken by Prime Minister Anwaar-ul Haq Kakar on Monday, the reports said. “The IB division will work directly under the Prime Minister with its office to be established in the cabinet division,” according to a notification. The IB director general will be the ex-officio secretary to the division, the Dawn newspaper reported quoting the notification.

“The IB earlier worked under the cabinet division and faced multiple problems, especially in financial and administrative matters. It is believed that the decision will also end interference of other departments and individuals in IB’s working,” it said quoting a senior official of the PM Office.

Before the status change, the secretary of the cabinet division had been notified as the principal accounting officer for the IB and all expenditures of the bureau were scrutinised by the financial adviser of the cabinet division. Similarly, the bureau has been empowered to take its own decision regarding the transfer, posting, and promotion of his officials, the report said.

‘Beheaded’ charge

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Tuesday said that it will initiate criminal proceedings against PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb for her remarks that jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan should have been “beheaded” in 2014 to rid the country of a “fitna” (anarchist). Marriyum said Khan should have been beheaded after they staged a protest in Islamabad in a bid to topple the Nawaz Sharif government.


Hybrid rule 3.0?

Zahid Hussain Published February 21, 2024 




IT is a right royal mess that is hard to clean up. A hung parliament through a controversial election has pushed the country deeper into the mire.

It has been almost two weeks since the general elections were held on Feb 8, but as yet, there is no sign of a new dispensation taking shape. A thick cloud of uncertainty continues to hang over the country’s political landscape.

While the PTI is still not out of the race, the two other major political parties — the PML-N and PPP — are engaged in hard bargaining for the formation of a new coalition arrangement, amid widespread protests against alleged poll rigging. The confession of the Rawalpindi commissioner, who resigned from his post, about his role in vote manipulation has raised more questions about the legitimacy of the entire electoral process.

It is certainly not the outcome of the long-awaited polls one wanted to see. It is the unravelling of the entire political power structure. But re-engineering work is on to prop up the old order already rejected by the electorate. The intermittent shutdown of social media seems to be a part of the effort to stifle opposition voices. One is, however, not sure whether these efforts will bring any political stability to a country in deep turmoil.

With the official result of the elections now almost fully compiled, the PTI-supported independent bloc is clearly ahead of the other political parties in the next National Assembly, despite the alleged electoral manipulation.

The PTI’s latest decision to merge its parliamentary party with the Sunni Ittehad Council in the House is supposed to be part of its tactics to get its share of some 70 reserve seats, thus keeping the group in the race to form the new government.

Re-engineering work is on to prop up the old order already rejected by the electorate.

Moreover, the PTI leadership also seems hopeful of snatching some more seats by challenging some controversial results in court. But it will still be difficult for the party to get the required number to form the government at the centre on its own. The party has already declared it will not enter into any power-sharing arrangement with the PML-N and PPP.

Yet its formidable presence in the National Assembly could present a constant challenge to a prospective PML-N-led coalition government. The PTI’s decision to stay in the game seems to have frustrated the plan that aimed to completely sideline the party.

Notwithstanding the alleged manipulations, the elections have changed the country’s political dynamics making it extremely hard for the ubiquitous security establishment to set its own rules. Its leadership seems to have come out bruised in the process.

It has been a vote against the military’s role in the political powerplay as well as its overarching presence in almost all aspects of state. Yet there is no indication of the generals taking a back seat. Instead, the meddling of the security establishment in politics is likely to be enhanced, given the fragmented electoral mandate. Its reported role in pushing the PML-N and PPP to reach an agreement on the formation of a coalition government has not been denied.

While there appears to be consensus among the PPP and smaller parties to support Shehbaz Sharif, the PML-N nominee for prime minister, there is no agreement yet on the power-sharing formula.

The PPP, whose support is crucial for any future set-up, is playing hard to get on the issue of joining the cabinet, while bargaining for key constitutional positions, including the post of president. The PPP has maintained its control over Sindh and is also poised to lead a coalition government in Balochistan, raising its stakes in the power game.

Past master in the politics of wheeling and dealing, Asif Ali Zardari is trying to extract maximum advantage for his party before finally agreeing to the PPP joining the government. The party has already made it public that Zardari will be a candidate for president. The issue seems to be a sticking point in the ongoing negotiations between the two parties.

Meanwhile, there also seems to be establishment pressure on the party to be a part of the incoming administration rather than supporting it from the outside. If a deal is struck, the future ruling coalition will not be different from the previous Shehbaz Sharif-led hybrid administration, with the security establishment having a significant role in all policy matters.

Most interesting, however, is Nawaz Sharif’s decision to stand down as candidate for prime minister. In fact, the party’s entire election campaign had revolved around his return to power. It seems that his party’s failure to achieve even a simple majority was the main reason for the withdrawal of his candidature. It is apparent that he didn’t want to lead a coalition government that would include the PPP.

So, Shehbaz Sharif, who has worked well with the military as well as other political parties in the past, is considered the right choice to lead the future coalition government. Nawaz Sharif has, however, made sure that the mantle of Punjab chief minister will go to his daughter and heir apparent Maryam Nawaz.

Being the largest single party in the Punjab Assembly, the PML-N may not have any difficulty in forming the government in the province, with the support of some independents not associated with the PTI. Some of them have already jumped onto the PML-N’s bandwagon. Maryam Nawaz’s nomination marks the continuation of the dynastic control of the Sharif family over Punjab.

What is most problematic, however, is the issue of different political parties ruling the provinces. While the Sindh government, led by the PPP, can coexist with the ruling coalition at the centre, it will not be easy for the PTI government in KP to work with the PML-N administration in Islamabad.

These inherent problems would make it extre­mely difficult for a minority government at the center to deliver on the critical problems related to governance, economy and internal security. There is no way the system can work in this atmosphere of confrontation. The future doesn’t look that good for the country, post-election.

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com

X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2024




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