EDITORIAL: When at the time of PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) government’s fall, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat parted ways and the PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain supported the new PDM coalition government while its Punjab president Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi decided to maintain his alliance with the ousted PTI leader Imran Khan, few believed the split between them was for real. But as with all other dynastic parties, family ties seldom matter in power struggles.
Any doubts about their differences were dispelled last year when the PTI nominated Elahi as its candidate for Punjab chief minister. Just before voting the then acting speaker revealed that he had received a letter from Shujaat saying as PML-Q president he had barred his party’s lawmakers from voting for Elahi, and declared PMN-N’s aspirant for the position Hamza Shehbaz as chief minister.
However, successfully challenging the result in the Supreme Court Elahi took that office. Soon afterwards, a senior Q League leader, Kamil Ali Agha, announced that the party had decided to hold elections to remove Chaudhry Shujaat as party president as well as its general secretary Tariq Bashir Cheema within 10 days. Nothing happened, though.
But reconciliation seemed impossible as long as Shujaat aligned himself with the PML-N, which Elahi has had his reasons not to trust.
It may be recalled that following the 1997 elections that party had made it known that Elahi would be the chief minister of Punjab, but then suddenly its president Nawaz Sharif gave that position to his brother, Shehbaz Sharif.
Two years later, Elahi returned the disfavour joining hands with the Sharifs’ nemesis, Gen Pervez Musharraf, and won the prized position. Shujaat too did the same, briefly getting appointed as prime minister. Both Chaudhrys, of course, understand too well the benefits accruing from compromise politics.
Elahi thinks his son, Moonis Elahi, has better future prospects in alliance with the PTI rather than the Nawaz League, overcrowded as it is by the two Sharif brothers’ children. Shujaat, too, has ambitions for his son Salik Hussain, currently Board of Investment Minister in the PDM coalition government at the Centre.
Using Imran Khan’s offer to Elahi for PML-Q’s merger with the PTI — so far neither accepted nor rejected — Shujaat not only issued him a show-cause notice but also suspended his basic party membership. Elahi’s faction has responded by stripping — in a claimed central working committee meeting — Shujaat of party presidentship, appointing his brother, Wajahat Hussain, in his place and ‘re-electing’ Elahi as its Punjab president.
The matter ultimately landed at the doorsteps of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that has determined that Shujaat is the valid president of the party. It is expected that the matter would ultimately land in court.
For all practical purposes, the PML-Q has already broken up into two factions. If only our political parties could follow the best democratic practices and regularly hold leadership elections, such unsavoury situations would not arise.
Unfortunately, top leaders of all mainstream parties, with the exception of Jamaat-e-Islami, regard it some sort of a divine right to occupy the post for life — ensuring no one throws a leadership challenge — and bequeath it only to their offspring, brothers, or even a spouse.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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