After the recent unification of five factions of the Muslim League, now comes the merger of the National Alliance (NA) with the unified Pakistan Muslim League (PML).
The merger has by no means gone down well with all members of the NA. Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, the NA president, is rumoured to have left the country without giving the merger his unequivocal blessings.
Even at the NA's meeting to take the formal decision for the merger, some speakers voiced their disappointment with and reservations about the decision, openly calling the PML the "Pervez Musharraf League".
Other participants appeared hesitant and reluctant to go along with what appeared to be Farooq Leghari's insistence on dissolving the identity of the NA for what he perhaps perceives will be greater political gains.
In fact, the former President has been the central character on the NA side in the whole drama. Leghari's own political trajectory, through his long career in public life, presents nothing more than a picture of a rise to the top, only to end up ignominiously as a junior partner in the ruling coalition after the general elections of 2002, and now finally extinguishing the existence of his own Millat Party, set up with great fanfare in 1998, as well as the Alliance of which he remained the most prominent, albeit lonely, presence in parliament.
One must not forget the long years Leghari spent in the PPP, rising to the position of secretary-general of the party and being anointed President of Pakistan in return for his long years of service to his mother party.
When he ascended to the presidency, Leghari resigned from the PPP, citing the high principle that the President of the country should be above party loyalties.
How ironic, then, that the same gentleman should now be willing to lend himself to what speculation holds is President General Pervez Musharraf's project of a unified and strengthened PML that he hopes to head after shedding his army uniform.
Another sign of the times is the willingness of Leghari today to embrace the kingpin in the PML, Chaudhry Shujaat, the very worthy who was once the target of Leghari's media campaign on the co-operatives scandal. How the mighty have fallen indeed.
Leghari's choices may have been narrowed by the failure of his Millat Party to take off or the NA to do well in the 2002 polls. The party he is merging with, however, does not necessarily present the best of options.
Seemingly solid and solidifying after the unification of five factions and the merger with the NA, the ruling party seems hollow on the inside.
The recent Shahbaz Sharif deportation episode did not leave the PML looking like a confident ruling party in control of the political situation.
This is hardly surprising, since the overwhelming majority of the PML members have shown a penchant for worshipping the rising sun, in this case, in time honoured Muslim League style, becoming willing camp followers of a military ruler.
This character of the contemporary PML is not very different from the Convention Muslim League Ayub Khan conjured up out of the ruins of what was once the Quaid's party.
Is there reason to believe that history will be any kinder to today's PML than it was to the Convention avatar of the party, which disappeared without trace with the exit of Ayub?
The obvious motivation for the unification and merger process is the strengthening of the ruling party in parliament and outside. However, the speculation that these are the opening shots in an effort to somehow garner a two thirds majority in parliament so as to be able to amend the Constitution, thus providing President General Pervez Musharraf the chance to remain in uniform beyond December 31, may be misplaced.
For one, the project, if it exists, of trying to gather a two thirds majority does not look promising as far as the numbers game is concerned. Second, for the purpose deduced, it may turn out to be unnecessary.
There is a view abroad in the land that if the President wants an extension as COAS beyond December 31, all he has to do is refer the decision to the appointing authority for the armed services chiefs.
Under the present constitutional dispensation, that authority is none other than the President himself.
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