As many as seven opposition parties have decided to form a grand political alliance against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab ahead of local body elections.The alliance members comprising Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat Islami (JI), Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) will not only back each other but have also decided in favour of seat adjustments.The high-level leadership of all seven parties met in Lahore at Mian Manzoor Wattoo’s residence in which they decided to team up in Punjab’s local body elections and extend political cooperation. They also unanimously demanded all four members of Election Commission to step down. Terming development fund worth Rs 2 crore ahead of local body election as pre-poll rigging, the alliance members demanded the election commission to freeze the funds. The opposition parties also announced to give local organizers the authority to make seat adjustments. They also demanded indiscriminate action against corruption. In many ways, this is a return to the politics of the past, when every possible effort was made to bring down the party elected to power. But there are significant differences. We are now essentially a country with at least three major parties, the PTI emerging as a major player on the scene and breaking the order of two seen in the past. The PTI and PPP have had their differences, but as Chaudhry Sarwar, heading the PTI in Punjab and present at Sunday’s meeting said, the party was ready to cooperate with any other entity for the sake of a particular cause. In this case, the parties say the cause is an end to electoral rigging, and called for the resignation of the four provincial election commissioners. In addition, they also agreed to back neglected groups including traders and farmers who are already staging protests against the imposition of GST and the decrease in the prices of key crops including rice. The alliance has immediately resulted in some degree of squabbling within the PTI over whether the party was bandoning its original agenda. But right now, it is the PML-N which will inevitably need to rethink its electoral strategy to some degree. It is possible the alliance will not directly affect the outcome of the district-level polls. But issues such as the Model Town killings have been brought up again and raised to the forefront of national politics. The PML-N then stands alone in front of a large line-up of parties standing against it. The era of politics of reconciliation, pioneered by former president Asif Ali Zardari, seems to be over. We are back to more bitter party politics, which is set to divide the democratic parties that hold centre-stage in the country, possibly affecting political events yet to come over the future months.
pk.shafaqna.com
