Salahuddin Haider
YES, absolutely. No doubt about it. No difference of opinion among glass gazers or analysts that Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) kept shrinking from eleven to ten parties, and now small parties hardly count.
Though some hope is still alive, but Bilawal and Shazia Marri striking different notes, a solid reunion looks almost unlikely.
Views gathered through background interviews with two principal groups, Peoples Party on one side, and JUI-F and PML-N on the other.
Bitterness has grown in the rank and file of the PDM to such extent that the get together witnessed last November, and December, has, in experts view, frittered away.
Energies of all major components have been a waist, but whether a complete collapse of anti-government campaign can restore even the semblance of its original form, appears pretty difficult.
However it cannot be denied that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who actually spearheaded the latest politics of agitation, is a shrewed campaigner and can always pull up surprises.
But then, there is also an equally, fact shrewder tactician in the PPP camp, Asif Zardari, who could easily counter the moves of rival group, comprising PML-N and JUI-F.
During the past days, when Benazir Bhutto was in power for her second stint, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, despite issuing edits of woman a being an Islamic State leader, was brought back by Zardari to her wife’s side.
As a journalist, who, by sheer accident, had come closer to Zardari in 1996, heard him disputing my contention that Maulana was a deceit, never stood his grounds firmly.
Quick came the rebuttal from Zardari, then an investment minister—-’ No, No, Maulana is an honourable man’, and he leaving my alone his upper floor of the Prime Minister’s House, rushed out to greet the JUI chief, who seemed to have been invited for reconciliation.
The Maulana got off well with Benazir, forgot his utterances of the past, and became the Kashmir Committee Chairman of the National Assembly.
It was a different matter that Maulana, despite working with changing regimes, never pleaded the cause of Kashmir, and allowed a burning issue like Kashmir, which many an expert within Pakistan and without, termed as ‘flashpoint’, which if exploded could submerge the subcontinent into an incredible disaster.
Now rumours had been afloat for the last two months, that Peoples Party, obviously on command from its supremo, kept distancing herself away from JUI and PML-N which created a rift in the Alliance, which has come to a stage now, that bridging that gap seems extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible.
From where and how these rumours generated, remain unknown, but straws in the wind, are fairly strong that has begun to attract the attention of analysts of the country, and even among some diplomats, foreign correspondents, positioned in Pakistan under journalists exchange programme.
IF Bilawal Bhutto says that PPP still wishes to work for reunion of the PDM parties, but Shazia Marri, an old PPP stalwart like Dr Nafeesa Shah, almost dashed that hope by saying that PPP too has too many tricks in its bag to counter the PML.
That being the situation, Hope, though alive, looks like getting dimmer and dimmer with the passage of each day.
The PDM and its 9 parties in a meeting, in which Maryam was surprisingly found absent, issued notices to PPP and Awami National party, the two political groups, who voted for PPP candidate Yusuf Reza Gilani for the Senate Chairmanship, but because of differences with PML-N and JUI-F, the move failed and sitting Senate Chairman Qiaser Sanjrai, remained firm in the saddle.
Reports how have been circulating of Maryam Nawaz sickness. She herself told the media, shown live on TV screens, that she needed a minor surgery which is not possible available in Pakistan.
What Kind of a small surgery it was which is unavailable in this country, is a major poser? But on the very next day, perhaps on guidance from father, she mended ways to emphasize that even if the government, presented her passport, air tickets and removes her name from ECL, she would order them to go back.
This is a mystery that needs resolution; Let us see what happens in the executive committee meeting of PPP which Bilawal has summoned for Monday April 5. Till than one should hold his or her breath.
