SINDH’S ruling party has said that the approaching Senate elections have nothing to do with the acceptance of the resignations by the provincial assembly’s four PTI members.

The denial is hard to accept since there is nothing else on the horizon that would explain the PPP’s step. The PTI members had sent in their resignations last August to protest against the alleged rigging of the 2013 elections.

In the period that followed, the PPP had changed tack many times. It often chose to play a staunch ally of the PML-N but did occasionally manage to overcome its meekness to politely advise Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif against frustrating Imran Khan to a point where it became too dangerous for whosoever was in power.

Also read: Resignations of PTI Sindh MPAs accepted

If anything, of late, some sections within the PPP have been found to be increasingly sympathetic to Mr Khan’s rigging refrain. For instance, Aitzaz Ahsan, the more respectable among the PPP men and a senator, has been offering the most vocal support to the PTI’s cause.

There is also Khursheed Shah, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, who has just renewed his offer of mediating between the PTI and the PML-N government at the centre.

It makes for a very uneasy equation when the aspiring mediator suddenly discovers some forgotten resignation letters filed by one party to the dispute and decides to exercise its right to accept them.

The message is that the grand ideals of reconciliation which PPP supremo Asif Ali Zardari has been pursuing are open to compromise in the face of an impending election to the upper house.

This is bound to spike tensions whereas in the given national situation stalemate on this count could have been a better option.

In the wake of daily fights with the MQM and groups from other parts of Sindh, the PPP should have been careful to not open too many fronts at the same time.

Meanwhile, the Sindh Assembly’s decision notwithstanding, other assemblies holding on to PTI resignations should persuade the protesting legislators to return.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2015

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