MUZAFFARGARH, Feb 20: The Feb 18 general elections appears to have pushed the country back on the track of two-party system after over eight years of despondency as alleged by the opposition parties and the ‘remains’ of the former ruling faction are mulling their induction to their parent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Muzaffargarh is a district, which proved itself as mini-Larkana in the Punjab province after the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) swept all the five National Assembly seats and bagged six out of 11 Punjab Assembly seats. One MMA-backed candidate and four PML-Q candidates returned to the Punjab Assembly.
The PML-Q MPAs-elect are Qasim Hanjra from PP-251, Jawad Kamran Khar PP-255, Mian Imran Qureshi PP-256 and Amir Gopang from PP-260.
But, when the PML-Q appears to have been mopped out from power corridors, now its elected members while considering their future bleak are ready to join any of the two mainstream political parties, preferably their ‘parent party’, the PML-N, as the PPP is unlikely to absorb the PML-Q members into its folds due to certain obvious reasons.
The PML-N leadership has already offered PML-Q elected members, except the Chaudhry brothers of Gujrat, to return to their “parent party”.
Sources close to the four PML-Q MPAs elected from Muzaffargarh district told Dawn with authority that the four had made a group led by former district nazim, Sultan Hanjra, who is uncle of one of the MPAs-elect, Qasim Hanjra, to contact PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to allow them joining his party.
“Yes, we have formed a group and we will decide joining the PML-N very soon,” a PML-Q MPA-elect told Dawn on condition of anonymity.
He said though they would attend a PML-Q meeting in Lahore on Thursday (today), they would decide their future line of action regarding quitting PML-Q and joining the PML-N or otherwise after the meeting but on their own.
He said if they decided to join the PML-N, all the four tehsil nazims of the district belonging to the PML-Q would also join the PML-N along with them.
The tehsil nazims are Rafique Khar of Kot Addu, Sardar Abad Dogar of Muzaffargarh, Ms Irum Bukhari of Jatoi and Khizar Hayat Gopang of Alipur.
All these tehsil nazims had fielded their close relatives on PML-Q tickets but all were defeated by PPP candidates except Abad Dogar’s nephew Aun Dogar, who was defeated by MMA’s Qaswar Langrial at PP-257. He said all the four MPAs-elect had already been members of the PML-N in the past.
On a question, he said it would not be called ditching the PML-Q if they decided to leave it because they fought the elections from the platform of such a party, which indeed harmed them and reduced their number of votes they were otherwise likely to obtain because of their personal influence.
He said if the PML-N succeeded in making its government in Punjab, then it would not be possible for them and all the tehsil nazims to sit in the opposition as it was very much likely that the government would snatch from them all their nazim’s slots as well.
The country witnessed two-party system emerging for the first time in 1990s when Benazir Bhutto of the PPP and Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N ruled the country twice, yet on alternative terms in 1988 and 1993 and 1990 and 1997, respectively.
The beauty of democracy, two-party system got wrapped up along with democracy itself when Gen Pervez Musharraf overthrew the PML-N government in a bloodless army coup on Oct 12, 1999.
Though general elections were held three years later in 2002, it gave rise to a PML faction largely consisting of deserters of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N and Benazir’s PPP. Headed by Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, the PML-Q ruled the country on the crutches provided by ‘the powers that be’ for the next five years in the absence of both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and, according to their rivals, amassed “artificial” political support throughout the country, particularly in Punjab. The two mainstream leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, however, returned to the country to launch their campaigning for the 2008 general elections a few months before the polls. Pervaiz Elahi, who was chief minister of the province during the past five years, spearheaded the PML-Q’s campaigning.
Though Benazir was assassinated in an arson-bomb attack soon after a PPP rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on Dec 27, her party emerged as single largest party in the National Assembly after Monday’s general elections, followed by Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N surfacing as the second largest party.
The PPP also conquered Sindh province while the PML-N stood first in the Punjab province, nearly wiping out Shujaat-led PML faction fully backed by Gen Musharraf as alleged by the opposition parties and political analysts.
Meanwhile, newly-elected members of the National and Punjab assemblies continued celebrating their victory on the second consecutive day on Wednesday.
The manager of PPP’s MNA-elect Hina Rabbani Khar said that over 50,000 people had visited her electioneering office to congratulate her while another PPP’s MNA-elect, Jamshed Dasti, said that around 30,000 had visited his election office in these two days.