The top brass of five factions of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) met here on Monday and agreed to abdicate their individual positions and create a new unified party under the same rubric.
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali chaired the meeting, which was attended among others by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Hamid Nasir Chattha, Ijazul Haq, Mian Manzoor Wattoo, Kanwar Kutabuddin, chief ministers of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan and chief of Sindh Democratic Alliance Imtiaz Sheikh.
Under the plan, famously called S.M. Zafar formula, the leaders of the five factions of the PML will announce wrap up of their outfits when they would meet at the PML House on Tuesday.
They are also expected to firm up a panel of leaders for election a day later when the general body of the unified PML would hold its first cabal.
At the meeting on Monday, "frank and candid" views were expressed about the quality of governance provided by the four PML-led governments, at the centre and in three provinces.
By and large, the opinions and views expressed by leaders tended to suggest emergence of two important power centres in the PML (Q) - the flagship of the ruling PML (Q).
The leaders also discussed the "legal hitch" that the Political Parties Act poses to the unification plan, as it does not allow the party leadership to dissolve it.
In case it is done, the members of the said party cease to hold membership of the legislatures to which they have been elected under the symbol of the dissolved party.
Interestingly, the PML unification underway is coincidental to the expected arrival of PML (N) president, Shahbaz Sharif, whose faction, however, is not going to join the unification drive, at least for the time being.
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