HAVING ousted the man described by his opponents and even some friends as the absentee Balochistan chief minister ie the PML-N’s Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, the young incumbent now on Quetta’s throne may not have realised that he effectively leads a minority government.

Knowledgeable sources in Quetta say that if the JUI-F (an ally of the PML-N at the centre), whose chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had lashed out at PPP leader Asif Zardari’s decision to support one of Balochistan’s ‘independent’ senators for chairman’s position, actually wanted to play the real opposition, it could easily join hands with parties opposed to Quddus Bizenjo and oust him.

But this will not happen as Maulana Wasay, who heads the JUI-F parliamentary party in the Balochistan Assembly, had the sweetest of deals in his capacity as leader of the opposition, while running the planning and development department with his handpicked civil servant at the helm as additional chief secretary who reported to him and not the chief minister.

Both chief ministers lost touch with the province they were running.

He has now been replaced as opposition leader by PkMAP’s Rahim Ziaratwal, who was notified this week. But even then, sources say, Wasay is sanguine as he will continue to call the shots in the department which is said to be important and well-resourced.

Interestingly, an elementary numbers exercise establishes that the government needs to have the support of 33 members to be viable and for the chief minister to stay in office. The current strength of those on the treasury benches is 27 after the unseating of MPA Kakar Manzoor. Speaker Rahila Durrani is also not part of the count as such.

Now look at the tally on the other side where 23 members belong to the Ziaratwal-led opposition. The PkMAP has 13 members, NP has eight and there are two other MPAs supporting it. The Maulana Wasay-led group has 13 members with eight belonging to the JUI-F, BNP-M two, ANP one, BNP-A one and independent Tarik Magsi. The total strength of those occupying the opposition benches is, therefore, 36, in a house of 65.

Does this mean an automatic threat to the Quddus Bizenjo-led minority government, which seemed to have had such a monumental impact on the Senate (and the upper house chairman’s) election?

Not necessarily. The dynamics of the province’s politics are unique to Balochistan. Maulana Fazlur Rehman expressed anger and anguish at the role of the PPP in the Senate chairman’s election saying: “Pehle Zardari sab pe bhari thay aur ab wo bhari hein jo Zardari pe bhari hein (first Zardari outwitted his opponents, now someone else is outwitting him).”

There was no doubt the wily maulana was hinting at the role of the so-called establishment’s role in managing the Senate elections in Balochistan which sources in Quetta acknowledge too. Perhaps rightly, Fazlur Rehman was quick to judge Asif Zardari and to hold out a warning to all political forces to be aware of the perils of such policies.

But he was not honest enough to admit his own party men in Balochistan were either taking their own decisions and defying him, or that he was a party to their tacit support to the government and assurances to its supposed patrons that they would not rock the boat.

Then, of course, the so-called independent-minded nationalists are also at daggers drawn. BNP-M’s leader Sardar Akhtar Mengal has kept quiet at reports that he refused to support the candidature of NP’s Hasil Bizenjo if the latter ran for the chairman’s slot. This is, of course, being taken as confirmation.

It is being openly said in Quetta that with general elections due in a few months, many political parties and politicians are keen not to find themselves on the wrong side of the establishment and its agencies whose role is said to be key to winning or losing in the province which is under a security clampdown.

“After all, who does not know the current chief minister was elected as MPA from strife-torn Awaran with a mere 500-odd votes. Look at where he is now. So, our success hangs in the balance and we can’t afford to cross the line,” one legislator openly told me during a phone conversation.

However, one sees the role of forces which should have no part in politics or political engineering; the absenteeism of the political leaders has also strengthened their hands no end. While the PPP inflicted the leader of the Sarawan tribe on the province, the PML-N had no one better to offer as a counterweight than the leader of the Jhalawan tribe.

Between Sardar Aslam Raisani and Nawab Sanaullah Zehri respectively the bulk of the tribal structure is divided half and half. Both chief ministers lost touch with the province they were running and spent most of their tenures in Islamabad, Dubai and even further afield in London.

To add insult to injury (anger at, for example, Sanaullah Zehri’s long absences from Quetta and the utter neglect of his own party MPAs) were allegations of corruption citing the then chief minister’s close family members such as brothers-in-law and even a brother.

Ironically, when push came to shove, it is widely believed that Zehri’s own close relatives’ loyalty to the PML-N candidate in the Senate elections was not a foregone conclusion and those familiar with the actual numbers game suggested at least one (or more) may have voted for the other side.

There is no doubt that the Constitution lays down with great clarity the role of state institutions and also sets limits on the freedom of action of each. So any transgression by those not having anything to do with politics can and should be condemned.

At the same time, given our long history, it is equally incumbent on civilian political forces to run a tight ship and not be found napping as the PML-N demonstrably was in this case, causing it much embarrassment and stress.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018