LAHORE, Feb 7: There is little possibility of the ARD movement against President Musharraf gaining momentum in the absence of crowd pullers Mian Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto, leaders of the two major parties of the coalition living in exile for the past several years. And since there is no possibility of either of them returning home in the foreseeable future, the general, who has been singled out for criticism both by the ARD and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, faces no threat to his rule.
Leaders like Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Raja Zafarul Haq, heads of the PPP-Parliamentarians and the PML-N, respectively, don't have the charisma to mobilize the masses -- and also lack the experience of leading mass movements. Both of them may be good negotiators and planners, but not agitators.
The second rank leadership of the two parties has no interest in wasting their energies on an objective they think is unachievable.
The remaining ARD parties are non-entities, unable to stoke or damage any movement.
As a result, the ARD would continue raising slogans and the strong-nerved general would continue to do what he has been doing for the past four years.
PPP Secretary-General Jehangir Badar is an experienced political worker, but he has been very careful in his acts and utterances against the government possibly because of the NAB cases against him. Punjab PPP President Qasim Zia, is a novice in politics, though picking up very fast.
Sindh leaders of the PPP will go only to the extent Ms Benazir Bhutto asks them to.
This means there is hardly any PPP leader now in the field who on his own can bring the people on streets.
The situation in the PML-N is no different.
Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq can do anything except transforming people's bitterness into a movement. Party President Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who being a former student leader, had the skill to provoke the electorate against the rulers has been arrested on the charge of defaming the army.
Begum Tehmina Daultana, Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Ahsan Iqbal, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and Syed Zafar Ali Shah can't be expected to do more than what they are already doing.
Party leaders are now waiting for Mian Shahbaz Sharif's return home. Despite reports that he will defy the banishment accord and land in Lahore in March, he is still weighing options and assessing the possible consequences he may have to face on setting foot on a soil he is supposed to stay away from for 10 years.
It is said that before making public his decision that he will go back home irrespective of the consequences, he had told some of his party colleagues that he apprehended his arrest and conviction in what he called the false case of ordering as chief minister a police encounter which had led to the killing of five people. He had also recalled the tragic destiny of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a murder case.
Party leaders are trying to find out the reasons which made the former Punjab chief minister to change his mind come back home at all costs.