PML(N) Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif’s return at last to Pakistan seems to have left the PPP cold and asking for elections. A statement before his arrival by party Co-chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari objected to the way the elections were being held hostage to the return of one person to Pakistan, while once he had returned and addressed the welcoming rally at Minar-e-Pakistan, statements from party Information Secretary Faisal Karim Kundi and Central Punjab General Secretary Kamran Murtaza indicated the PPP’s unease. Obviously, the PPP was making the transition from coalition partner to election opponent. It also reflected the PPP’s objections to the way that events have been unfolding after the dissolution of assemblies in August, and the way matters are being arranged to set up a PML(N) win. While Mr Murtaza asserted that Mr Sharif’s rally was ‘no match’ for Benazir Bhutto’s famous homecoming in 1986, thus apparently pre-empting a claim that the PML(N) has not emphasized, there are other more practical reasons for the PPP to criticize the PML(N).
Most significant is probably the difference over when the elections are to be held. The PPP holds, along with the PTI, that polls should be held within the constitutionally prescribed 90-day limit. As Mr Sharif indicated while talking to the press during his Dubai stopover, the PML(N) is willing to leave the Election Commission of Pakistan to fix the date, and presumably to overstep the date, which it has indicated it plans to do because it needs to carry out fresh delimitations. The PPP’s reactions seem to be the result of its realization that it is not getting the benefits of cooperating with the establishment, and that the PML(N) has been notionally designated as the party that will win the next election.
The PPP has obviously got to position itself as the PML(N)’s main opposition in the Punjab, a place for which it will have to displace the PTI. It should not be forgotten that the PTI not just replaced the PPP in 2018, but emerged as the largest part in Punjab, where it formed the government. Now that Mr Sharif is back, the PPP has clearly wasted no time in taking its gloves off.
