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National government idea finds no takers in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: After denials and rejection from all sides, a proposal for the formation of a national government in Pakistan before elections, possibly resulting in a further postponement of voting day now scheduled on February 18, appears to have been still-born.

President Pervez Musharraf has rejected it, saying elections will be held under the present caretaker government. The Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari says he is in favour of a national government after the election, and warned against any further delay in the election.

The Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif is the only one who wants a national government before the election, but minus General (retd.) Musharraf, which effectively rules it out unless the President decides to step down.

But in the uncertain political climate in Pakistan, nothing can be completely ruled out.

More than once this week, Mr. Sharif has said that the need of the hour is a national government and “a couple of weeks delay” that this may entail in holding the elections should not matter.

In fact, he wants the formation of a new election commission that would issue a notification of fresh dates for the election.

According to him, this would allow parties that are boycotting the election — notably the Jamat-i-Islami and Imran Khan’s Pakistan tehreek-i-Insaf — to come back into the fray.

The former Prime Minister has said that this, and the establishment of an independent election commission, is the only way to hold a free, fair and transparent election.

Despite his insistence that Gen. Musharraf must go first, commentators have noted a barely perceptible thaw between the two adversaries in the contact between the PML(N) leader’s brother Shahbaz Sharif, and a retired brigadier, Niaz Ahmad, who is both a family friend of the Sharifs and a confidante of Gen. Musharraf.

But at a meeting with editors of newspapers on Friday, the President ruled out a national government before the election. He said the election under the caretaker government would be free, fair and transparent, and rejected accusations of rigging as “baseless”. He talked of the possibility of a national government after the election, as according to him, no party was poised to win an outright majority and a hung Parliament was the most likely result.

Mr. Zardari is also totally opposed to the idea of a national government before the elections. The PML (Qauid), the main political ally of Gen. Musharraf has also ruled out the formation of a national government, saying that it was being proposed by those — meaning the Sharif brothers — who smelt defeat and wanted to postpone the elections under some pretext.

The idea for a national government is thought to have first emanated from Musharraf confidants who thought it might be the best method to defer the election again to deny the PPP any advantage from a possible pro-Benazir sympathy wave.

By holding out the carrot of a primary role for the PML (N) in a pre-election national government, the Musharraf camp also hoped to blunt the party’s harsh criticism of the President, which has virtually turned the election into a referendum on him.

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