PML-N move came seven weeks after decision

ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: Though a formal word from PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to expel PPP from the Punjab government came on Friday, the actual decision had been made by his party as early as Jan 4 and an announcement was delayed by more than seven weeks to justify the move, according to sources in the PML-N. Friday's meeting of the PML-N's central organising committee and lawmakers, the sources told Dawn, was a mere formality and actually meant to formally induct the breakaway Unification Bloc of rival PML-Q, a move likely to face both political and legal challenges. The sources said that a 10-point reforms agenda, mainly comprising old demands of the party given to PPP for implementation in 45 days, was only a political move to gain more time for negotiations with the group of PML-Q dissidents and to escape blame of showing political expediency at a time when two major coalition partners of the PPP had already quit the government at the centre. But a PML-N spokesman for the Punjab government Senator Pervez Rashid said the party had given the agenda with sincerity and that there was no need for negotiations with the Unification Bloc that had already pledged its support to his party when the governor's rule was imposed in the province in 2009 after a court ruling, which was later overturned, disqualified Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. And, he said, no decision had yet been taken about the number of ministries to be given to newcomers in the next provincial cabinet. He justified the inclusion of the Unification Bloc members by saying, if the same was acceptable to the PPP in Balochistan then why it was wrong in Punjab. The sources said that all PML-N members at the Friday's meeting at the Punjab House in Islamabad gave a thunderous applause to Unification Bloc MPAs when Mr Sharif welcomed them and introduced their leader Ata Mohammad Maneka just before making the announcement to expel the PPP ministers.It was in the backdrop of the decisions by JUI-F and MQM to quit the PPP-led ruling coalition that the PML-N leadership had gathered at the spacious Punjab House on Jan 4, the day Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated at a nearby posh market of the capital. During that meeting, the sources said, a majority of PML-N members told Mr Sharif it was an appropriate time to say goodbye to PPP in Punjab and instead induct the Unification Bloc into the cabinet. The members were of the view that the party's image was getting a bad name because of being viewed as a "friendly opposition" in the centre while having the PPP as a coalition partner in Punjab. However, after lengthy deliberations, the PML-N leadership decided not to immediately push the PPP out of the Punjab cabinet and prepare a ground for it by presenting a reforms agenda for implementation within a timeframe. The PML-N leadership knew it well that the PPP government would not be able to implement the agenda in 45-day period as it included the demand for implementation of Supreme Court's verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance that would have meant reopening of corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari in a Swiss court. In previous meetings, the sources said, the PML-N members had discussed possible future strategies and there was a big group within the party which had favoured launching a mass mobilisation campaign on the issues of price hike and corruption. But a meeting of the PML-N leadership in December, after a reassessment, decided to give up the idea of trying to bring an in-house change to replace the PPP-led coalition government and instead force it towards a mid-term election by aggressively pursuing the corruption issue in parliament and outside. Soon after the announcement by JUI-F and MQM to quit the ruling coalition and sit on the opposition benches last month, the PML-N set a six-day deadline to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to say "yes" or "no" to the 10-point agenda and threatened to sack PPP ministers from the Punjab cabinet in the event of a negative reply. However, the prime minister managed to overcome the political crisis by persuading the MQM back to treasury benches and then calling Nawaz Sharif to express his willingness to implement the PML-N's agenda, mostly comprising the party's old demands such as removal of corrupt ministers from the federal cabinet, passage of a new accountability law, reduction in the cabinet size, cut in non-development expenditures, steps to end power and gas load-shedding and appointment of honest people as heads of state-run enterprises. Despite earlier reports of progress by negotiators of the two parties, Mr Sharif said at his news conference on Friday that the government had failed to implement even a single item on the PML-N's agenda. But his claim was strongly rejected by the PPP, whose Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Raza Rabbani cited progress point by point.