Chairman Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz at Jati Umra on June 16, 2019 on the latter's invitation. The two had earlier met in Islamabad at Bilawal's Iftar dinner. The two young leaders discussed virtually the whole gamut of issues confronting the opposition and the country. Not surprisingly, their main focus remained the performance in office of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government, especially its economic failures and what Bilawal dubbed a 'PTIMF budget' that was tantamount to 'economic suicide'. The bottom line for both leaders was that the PTI government's 'time is up' and the two parties should evolve a joint strategy for the struggle against the 'selected' government both inside and outside parliament. They also agreed to block the government's budget and prevent it being passed.
For this purpose, it was decided to hold consultations with all political parties, including the government's coalition partners who were unhappy with the incumbents. Chief amongst these is the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), which has come out openly with the threat to leave the coalition since the government has made no move towards implementing the six points agreed when BNP-M joined the coalition. These six points revolve around Balochistan's demands to end enforced disappearances, account for those missing, repatriate the Afghan refugees from the province and ensure outsiders coming to Gwadar will not have voting rights in the province, along with a host of grievances on the rights of the province in the federation and its people as citizens of the state. The PPP has already met BNP-M chief Akhtar Mengal the other day. The outcome was Mengal's demand that an agreement on his six points be signed. This was followed almost immediately by a wooing session from the PTI led by Defence Minister Parvez Khattak. Not much has emerged so far about that confab.
It should be recalled that the opposition is planning an All Parties Conference (APC) to be convened by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Bilawal and Maryam agreed that the final decision whether to launch a movement against the government would only be taken after they had gone back to their own parties for consultations and in the light of whatever consensus may emerge from the APC. Bilawal spoke to the media later at Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan's house, where Aitzaz reportedly cautioned him to proceed with care in his efforts to forge an understanding with the PML-N lest the latter use the pressure thus exerted on the government to strike a 'deal' with the establishment. Aitzaz's harsh views about the PML-N, even above and beyond the utterings of his own party leaders, are a matter of record. Nevertheless, there may be a grain of truth in what he says since it is an open secret that there exist internal differences within the PML-N.
Whereas incarcerated Nawaz Sharif is for an unbending resistance to the government that appears hell-bent on targeting the two main opposition parties' leadership, Shahbaz Sharif favours a 'softly, softly' approach that leaves room for a compromise with the establishment. With Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur and Hamza Shahbaz behind bars and indications other leaders from both parties may follow in what is turning out to be a 'season of the long knives', the room for compromise is shrinking fast. And with the process of passing of the baton of leadership to a younger generation visible, it is possible to contemplate a meeting of minds (tactical at least) that could pit both parties (and others) against the incumbent government on the barricades.
What lends credence to this possibility is the tone, tenor and content of the Bilawal-Maryam discussion. The references against superior judges came into that purview, with the consensus being that this government was following in the footsteps of the Musharraf regime in targeting independent minded judges and that this would not be allowed to pass, even if a fresh lawyers' movement was required for the purpose. The targeting of their parties was one of the easiest points to agree on between Bilawal and Maryam. Generally, they jointly castigated the rife human rights violations, media censorship and attacks on journalists, and expressed the alarm that if this government is allowed to continue in its fumbling, inept, incompetent manner, the country could end up being wrecked.
The two young leaders agreed to revisit the historic Charter of Democracy signed by the late Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in exile in London in 2006 and update it according to the evolving situation. It should be recalled that the most cogent aspect of the Charter of Democracy was the pledge not to be 'played' ever again against each other by the establishment, as had been the case since at least the 1990s.
Bilawal has announced a mass contact campaign from June 21, 2019 (his mother's birthday). This reflects the PPP's perception that the waters should be tested at the mass level before giving a call to the masses to come out against the government. There is optimism that if the opposition can unite, the judges' references (if not dismissed by the Supreme Judicial Council) could mobilise the lawyers, and the economic hardship imposed on the people by the PTI government, which is likely to be exacerbated if this budget is passed, will persuade the masses to back an anti-government drive.
So far so good. But critics of the opposition's efforts ask whether it is possible for it to gain the support of the people merely by critiquing the PTI's fumbling policies or whether a transformational (even revolutionary) programme of systemic change is a sine qua non for a credible mass movement despite the ordinary citizen groaning under the inflation, unemployment and insecurity unleashed by the PTI government. On the answer to that question may rest our fate.
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