ISLAMABAD: A considerable majority in the PPP is unhappy over the party leadership’s decision to make Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of the JUI-F deputy chairman of the Senate.

In background discussions, a number of party leaders termed the decision “jaw dropping” and agreed that voting for him was a permanent scar on a party that was the first choice for the increasingly shrinking minority of left-leaning individuals in the country.

“The move will be remembered as yet another bad decision by Asif Ali Zardari, who may have clung to power this way, but has served a powerful blow to the party’s foundations,” a senior party lawmaker told Dawn.

Know more: Rabbani, Haideri sworn in as Senate chairman, deputy

Unspoken agreement between Fazl, Zardari said to be behind Haideri’s election

But the question still remains; what actually led to the left-of-centre PPP voting for a 24-carat right-wing JUI-F candidate?

According to a source in PPP, it was the result of an unwritten agreement between Mr Zardari and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman. The agreement stipulated that if the latter helped the PPP win the top slot, the PPP would have to support Mr Rehman’s candidate for the deputy chairmanship.

Former PPP senator Dr Qayyum Soomro, according to one party insider, played the role of ‘handler’ between the two leaders. The two leaders met more than once in the run up to the elections for the chairman and deputy chairman’s posts where they are said to have thrashed out this plan, the party source claimed.

“Soon after the one-on-one meeting between PM Nawaz Sharif and the JUI-F chief on March 11, following which the PM announced unconditional support for the PPP candidate, it was quite obvious that Mr Rehman would never settle for anything less than the deputy chairmanship of the Senate,” a PPP source said.

The other party that was surprised by the PPP decision to support Senator Haideri was the PML-Q. “We don’t know what happened behind the scenes, but up until the last moment, the PPP had assured us that it would support our candidate,” PML-Q information secretary Kamil Ali Agha told Dawn.

In line with the decision that the deputy chairmanship would fall to a member from Balochistan, the PML-Q was vying to have its own candidate elected. But sometime on Wednesday night, “The PPP leadership broke the news that since the government was supporting the JUI-F candidate, the party had decided to fall in line too,” Mr Agha – who remained part of hectic discussions on the subject – told Dawn.

It was a complete surprise for the PML-Q, however, after the two major parties decided to stand behind the JUI-F. “We were left with no choice but to opt out.”

To a question, Mr Agha, said only time would tell what actually led to the PPP’s decision to vote for the JUI-F.

According to sources privy to these developments, Wednesday night was a particularly exciting time and after it was decided that the JUI-F will get the deputy chairmanship, some in the PPP asked who Fazlur Rehman would choose for the position. According to a participant of the discussion, the JUI-F chief initially named Senator Hafiz Hamdullah.

At this point, Aitzaz Ahsan and Sherry Rehman asked the JUI-F leader to bring in somebody else instead of Hafiz Hamdullah because his anti-women views were widely known. In October last year, Mr Hamdullah triggered an upper house boycott against him when he called for legislation to make marriage mandatory for women above 40. Before this, he had once said that women who didn’t wear a veil were the cause of many social ills. Sensing danger, the JUI-F then put forward Mr Haideri’s name.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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