- The new committee will not work
The PML-Q decision to boycott the new PTI committee to negotiate with it is a strong reaction, though it also indicates that it was not satisfied with the action taken by the previous committee, consisting of Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood and Defence Minister Parvez Khattak. The PML-Q seems unhappy with the fact that that committee made certain commitments, and there is now a new committee, even though the previous one’s commitments have not been fulfilled. The PML-Q apparently does not want to be in the position of having to have the new committee, which now has Governor Muhammad Sarwar and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in place of Mr Khattak, renegotiate what has been agreed.
The refusal seems like a little more than a smaller party’s tantrum thrown to enhance its value to the larger party in the coalition. The PML-Q is a shadow of the party that was in power from 2008 to 2013 at the centre and in all four provinces, but it is crucial to the PTI governments in the centre and Punjab. Though Federal Railways Minister Sh Rasheed Ahmad predicts that the PML-Q is going nowhere, and though the PML-Q itself has said it wants the PTI governments to complete their five-year term, the problem is that the crisis seems to be ballooning rather than subsiding. Though it has not yet reached the point where any party has indulged in self-fulfilling rhetoric, the point of no-return, while by no means inevitable, is now visible.
The PML-Q is not alone, which indicates that it is not being inordinately prickly, but that the PTI is not handling the relationship properly. The MQM-P is also disaffected, with its only minister having resigned. The PML-Q’s Moonis Elahi has refused to join a Cabinet headed by Imran Khan. With the repetition of the PPP’s offer to join the Sindh government, the PTI may feel relieved at the MQM-P’s rejecting the offer, but it still needs to work out its relationship with an electoral rival. The PTI needs to carry allies along, or else it will find itself having to choose between either going into opposition or going for a premature dissolution.
