Zardari or Nawaz can be the next President (Jung News)
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ISLAMABAD:
Helpless victims of General Pervez Musharraf for years, Mian Nawaz
Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, who were in political wilderness until
just a few months ago and who have suddenly become the virtual
controllers of the country's destiny, realise that they have to get
even with the establishment through a systematic, comprehensive and
calculated joint strategy, outlines of which have already been agreed
between them.
In long meetings with both these leaders in
Islamabad in the last two days, it became clear that none of them was
interested in acquiring power, just for the sake of power, as they
realise that the struggle is much too bigger and multi-dimensional.
Both
want to make basic and long overdue corrections in the country's
Constitution, including balancing the powers between the president and
the prime minister, making the judiciary independent in the real sense,
giving maximum provincial autonomy to bring the angry and smaller
provinces into the national mainstream, remove the sword of 58-2(B),
neutralise the National Security Council, free the media as it should
be and, if necessary, make use of Article 6 mandatory.
To
achieve these fundamental goals, Mian Nawaz Sharif is seriously
thinking of either electing Mr Asif Ali Zardari as the country's
president, or he could himself assume that position to remove the
distortions in the Constitution which Gen Pervez Musharraf has
introduced through his PCOs and numerous amendments and executive
orders.
If both of them decline to assume that role, for
whatever political reasons, Mr Sharif thinks they can find some
respectable person who would not be interested in the presidential
powers that Mr Musharraf has grabbed and make him the country's
president, if necessary for the interim period in which the
constitutional distortions could be corrected.
Sharif believes
that a new president will have to be elected as Mr Musharraf will be
unable to keep fighting like a commando, without any support from any
side. Sharif's strategy and plans are all based on a post-Musharraf
scene. When I met Mr Zardari on Saturday night at his Bilawal House in
Islamabad, he too was not thinking of who would be the prime minister
or which ministry or chief ministership would be given to whom. He has
been thrown into the political arena after the Benazir's killing but he
sees it as a God-given opportunity. He is in a different frame of mind.
He talks and thinks about things which have not been done for decades.
He wants to bring Baloch back from the mountains and give autonomy to
provinces, as demanded by smaller federating units. He wants permanent
independence for judges, financial and administrative, so that they are
no dictated by any adventurer who uses brute force to grab power.
And
his timeframe is no different from that of Mian Nawaz Sharif who says
changes that have long been ignored must begin within few days after
the new National Assembly begins functioning. He has a timeframe of
just about 10 days to resolve the complicated judges' issue once the NA
meets. He has 30 days in his mind to amend the Constitution, remove all
the bad clauses and cleanse it up. He has a maximum of 90 days in mind
to take all the complex decisions, not in the interest of his own
party, but for the country and its institutions.
Sharif and
Zardari have already set up a high-powered committee to work out the
modalities of resolving the judges' issue and by the time the NA meets,
a blueprint would be in their hands.
"We want to use the
honeymoon period for maximum use to sort out the basics as other
problems facing the nation are too grave and too involving," he told a
group of media men in Murree.
For these lofty goals, Mian Nawaz
Sharif and Asif Zardari look like men in a hurry. They are not
interested in power. Mr Sharif says his party will support the PPP 110
per cent in all its decisions, without demanding or claiming any share
in the government because the government is not his goal.
Likewise
Mr Zardari says we will take everybody on board, for a genuine national
consensus, even those who are not part of the parliament because they
boycotted the elections.
Both are ready for major compromises as
well to achieve their "national goals". Mr Sharif, who had a few months
back steered the All Parties Conference in London and had declared that
his party would never sit with the MQM of Mr Altaf Hussain, now says he
is ready to accept them in a PPP-PML-N coalition.
"We will do it
for the larger cause of the corrections that we want in the
Constitution and our system," he told us at his Murree residence on
Sunday morning at a typical Lahori breakfast meeting.
Both Mian
Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari agree, and are trying to convince
other small political players, that the time has now come for a major
overhauling of the Constitution and it should be done in one go, in one
package, within days.
Likewise Mr Zardari has agreed to go along
on the judges' issue and to settle it as quickly as possible but
through a proper process in the Parliament and not through agitation on
the streets. Mr Sharif has conceded this point to the PPP and he is now
convinced that the agitators, including the lawyers and the civil
society, must allow the Parliament some time to settle this issue.
Sharif
is not ready to give up the basic demand that the judges be restored
but he thinks the process must be immediately taken up by the
parliament and within 10 days a decision should be given so that
everybody can breath easily with a fiercely independent and neutral
judiciary in their seats overseeing the process of transition from an
autocratic self-serving regime to a true democratic set up.
Sharif,
in this context, narrated an interesting version of how he landed up in
the middle of the lawyers rally before the Judges Enclave a couple of
days after the elections. "I was proceeding to the Frontier House where
I was putting up when suddenly I found myself in the middle of
protesting lawyers as they were in the way to Frontier House. First the
protestors thought that I was a government person because of the police
and security vans protecting my motorcade. Some of them started hitting
these vans and even my own jeep with sticks and stones and my jeep side
glass was shattered. Then they realised that it was not a government
man. They took me along and I had to make a speech."
When asked
about the March 9 deadline given by Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Mian Nawaz
Sharif clearly indicated that he would like the date to be put off as
in his view this is not the right time to create a street scene.
"I
talked to Aitzaz Ahsan on the subject and even he agreed that the March
9 date was not sacrosanct and could be moved forward," Sharif said,
clearly hinting that at this point in time, he would prefer a peaceful
and parliamentary approach to resolve the issue rather than a street
solution.
This consultation between Nawaz and Aitzaz was
reflected on Tuesday in a letter circulated by Aitzaz to all presidents
of country's bar associations in which he said: "Our purpose in giving
that date is to give our political parties the required backing that
they may need to resist pressure to give up on restoration of
judiciary. We will, however, accommodate any genuine need to readjust
to a different schedule."
Repeatedly, both Asif Zardari and Mian
Nawaz Sharif kept asking me and other friends to assure the other side
that they were very sincere and serious about the major issues and any
attempt to create doubts and differences by interested parties,
specially supporters of President Pervez Musharraf, must be exposed and
defeated through continuous mutual consultations in an atmosphere of
trust and confidence on each other.
One of the journalist
colleagues described this new found love between Nawaz and Zardari as
"a fire burning intensely on both the sides". When one of us suggested
that the two coalition partners should show their parliamentary
strength to the people and the media in what could be called a National
Assembly session before the official one, probably in a private hotel,
both the leaders jumped on the idea.
Mr Zardari immediately
asked his party leaders to talk to Mian Sahib and in Murree. Mr Sharif
himself called Khwaja Asif, who was on a plane, flying to Islamabad to
meet Mr Zardari and gave the proposal for immediate consideration.
Both
sides took the suggestion so seriously, a joint meeting of all the
parliamentary parties has already been summoned for Feb 27 where the
coalition will show its strength and claim a majority, pressurising
President Musharraf to call the National Assembly session and ask them
to form the government. The ANP, independents and everybody supporting
them would be there.
Likewise when asked how they would tackle
the persistent efforts by the pro-Musharraf parties to create a rift in
the coalition, Mian Sharif immediately accepted a colleague's
suggestion that daily joint press briefings be held in Islamabad so
that both sides could answer any media question and stop rumours
floated by interested parties.
The two leaders are serious in
taking along provincial parties and junior partners. Asfandyar Wali is
thus their common darling and both are in constant touch with him. Even
the three leaders will soon be appearing before the national media
together in Islamabad to present their united face.
In the
background serious negotiations are going on to satisfy the regional
demands of the smaller parties and provinces to get them in the
national coalition. Mr Asfandyar Wali has a list of what he wants for
the NWFP and neither Zardari nor Mr Sharif are in opposition to any of
these demands, including renaming the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwa or the
sensitive issue of Kalabagh dam. But as political animals, all of them
know that such contentious issues have to be put on the back burner for
now, until the democratic institutions are restored and become
effective.
Mr Sharif and Asif Zardari are very mindful of not
creating a situation which embarrasses in the Pakistan Army vis-"¡-vis
Gen Musharraf but they both believe that sooner than later he will be
on his way out as there are hardly any cards left in his hands to play,
except to create rifts in the PPP-PML-N ranks and capitalise on them.
Thus,
they are both moving slow and may even look compromising at times when
they talk of working with Mr Musharraf as they realise that the US and
western capitals are very nervous with the thought of Musharraf
quitting the scene prematurely.
Once the first goal posts are
crossed, the new parliament is sworn in and government formation is
completed in an atmosphere of harmony and trust, political pressure
will automatically force Musharraf to come down from his high pedestal
and work with those very persons whom he described as rogues and
villains, corrupt and incompetent.
In such a Ghulam Ishaq
Khan-like situation, with no secret agency doing the dirty job for him,
with all his good-for-nothing political allies vanquished from the
scene, with his team of retired bureaucrats jumping ship like rats, it
would be hard for Musharraf to keep going. He does not need to be
pushed over the cliff. He will himself fall and accept the generous
offer of a safe exit that his former constituency will always give him. |
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