RAWALPINDI, March 3: Old allies in the right-wing Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, in the 1980s, the PML-N and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) have reached the final stages of negotiations to work together in the upcoming general elections. Certain seats, however - such as NA-56 in Rawalpindi - might strain the new alliance.

Leaders from both the PML-N and the JI refer to the relationship as “not an electoral alliance but seat adjustment,” as Senator Mushahidullah Khan, the former’s information secretary, put it.

He told Dawn that the two parties would support each other’s candidates in different constituencies. Negotiations regarding the general agreement are in progress, he said, and will be announced after some final issues are resolved. “Seat-to-seat negotiations” will be held later.

Mohammad Anwar Niazi, his counterpart in the JI, did not disagree with Khan's assessment. “Our negotiations are in progress,” Niazi told Dawn. “The JI will make seat adjustments in different parts of the country based on the ground realities of those areas.”

Rawalpindi’s NA-56, comprising largely middle-class areas along Benazir Bhutto Road, might complicate the promised “seat adjustment.” Because of its importance in national politics, and its proximity to Islamabad, both the PML-N and the JI want to have their candidate represent the district.

“NA-56 is a priority for us,” local JI leaders said, adding the JI would ask the PML-N to support the former's candidate in the seat.

Representatives of the PML-N are equally aggressive. “We will not surrender seats we win to any party,” said Sardar Naseem, the party's City president. “In 2008, the PML-N won all three National Assembly seats along with six provincial assembly seats. This year we have an independent election commission and are confident about winning all of the seats.”

Naseem pointed out infrastructure work carried out in Rawalpindi at a cost of billions of rupees by the PML-N led government. “The people of Rawalpindi will reward the party with their support,” he said.

JI’s Hanif Abbasi won the seat of NA-56 in 2002 by-election after it was abandoned by Sheikh Rashid Ahmed who won two seats, including NA-56, and then joined the PML-Q.

Mr Abbasi changed his party and joined the PML-N before the general elections on February 18, 2008. He won the seat on PML-N ticket while defeating Sheikh Rashid and PPP’s Sardar Shaukat Hayat.

JI leaders pointed out that their party boycotted the 2008 elections and fielded no candidates. However, in 2002, JI’s worker won the seat which proved the presence of JI’s votes.

Mushahidullah Khan spoke highly of the JI, saying, “In my opinion, they will have great success in the national and provincial assemblies as well as the Senate.”

Party sources reveal, however, that the PML-N had already begun considering a plan B in the event of necessary “seat adjustment.”

“The PML-N will have Hanif Abbasi run in NA-55 instead,” sources said. That district’s current representative, Malik Shakil Awan, will be “adjusted elsewhere.”

NA-55 has its own complicated past. In 2008, the PML-N’s Makhdoom Javed Hashmi won the district but abandoned it for a seat from Multan. Haji Pervaiz, also of the PML-N, won the by-election in June, and then resigned when his nephew was caught taking intermediate exams on behalf of the sitting MNA.

Malik Shakil Awan was elected in February 2010. In the upcoming elections, the PML-N is in the awkward position of having too many of its own contenders, including Malik Shakil Awan, Haji Pervaiz, Sardar Naseem, and current MPA Shaheryar Riaz.