SPOTLIGHT: The PPP-MQM ping pong goes on! 'Qatil' league to the rescue?: Who or what was behind the strike call?

It was odd indeed that a party in power should call for a strike. And that against a Supreme Court decision - a Court it never tires of claiming it holds in great esteem! Odder still that the strike was called immediately after the Supreme Court short order of Thursday 10 March 11 which struck down the appointment of the former Justice Syed Deedar Hussain Shah as Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) instead of waiting "for reasons to be recorded separately" in the detailed order.
Odd, odder, oddest!
Now if it turns out that the negative Supreme Court short order was due to technical flaws in the appointment process which could be corrected by the errant Executive and the same official, Justice (R) Shah, moved again for appointment, then the strike by PPP will have served no purpose than to betray an admission (perhaps inadvertently) that the official in question did have political leanings towards the party. Therefore the strike by PPP may have perhaps messed up the chances of Justice (r) Shah's reappointment by now making him controversial. The Sindh Assembly (minus members of MQM) even passed a resolution against the Court decision but tried to make it seem (playing games?) that the resolution was actually aimed against Chaudhry Nisar Ali (Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly) for having moved the Court against the appointment in the first place.
It is odder still that a party which never tires of claiming for itself all-Pakistan presence should take up and spouse a narrow provincial cause at the risk of losing ground in other provinces especially the all-crucial Punjab! One naturally wonders if there were one or more ulterior motives underlying the strike decision. This takes us into the area of conjecture. So here goes:
1. ZM getting around MQM-driven downfall?
The Sindh Interior Minister keeps playing the Sindh Card with cyclic regularity. On all such occasions in recent days MQM has been the target of his tirade. This time it is aimed at the Supreme Court although rather obliquely. Is he playing the Sindh Card this time on his own? No prominent leader of PPP endorsed the strike call by the decision although Party spokesmen and some leaders have tried to defend it (rather weakly though) during media discussions. However, Mirza appears to have carried the Provincial Party and the Sindh Assembly (now boycotted by chief ally MQM) which unanimously passed the resolution against the Court order. We also recall that when ZM entered the Sindh Assembly after his latest and most lethal tirade against chief ally MQM some days ago, he was greeted thunderously by the members although his verbal attack on MQM had brought the PPP/MQM alliance apparently to a point of no return. That crisis has sent President Zardari into a whirlwind of consultations with PPP leaders and Rehman Malik scurrying to London to meet the MQM Supremo (may we suggest that Malik buys a season ticket to London?). MQM are after Mirza's blood and it is, allegedly at the very least, their prime demand and main prerequisite for the latest reconciliation efforts to get anywhere. So is the unstable Mirza playing the Sindh Card for his own survival ie to circumvent any drastic action against him by PPP high command?
2. Dual office fears: first salvo?
Another conjecture in the matter is based on the possibility that Asif Zardari is fully (though not openly) behind the strike call and the Sindh Assembly resolution about the court decision. Dr Zulfiqar Mirza is reputed to be very close to President Zardari and it appears highly unlikely that he would act in the manner he did against his mentor's wishes. Same goes for the Sindh Assembly resolution.
Why would the President want to do that? It will be recalled that a couple of days before the strike call by Sindh PPP, we learnt that "following conclusion of arguments on Thursday, 10 March 11, a full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) reserved the verdict on identical petitions against President Asif Ali Zardari for holding dual offices of co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and President of Pakistan". One conjecture is that the President senses that the decision might go against his present dual status. Since the decision would be totally unacceptable to the President considering both the so called Presidential immunity question and the already restive status of PPP, he could not see his way to giving up either the Presidentship of the country or the formal control of his party and therefore has struck the first blow against the Judiciary in the shape of the Sindh strike.
If the Lahore High Court decides to disallow dual office holding by the President the battle could possibly resume in the Supreme Court. It is not conceivable that the President would give up the Presidentship and the umbrella of immunity that his Party claims it gives him. He could in the worst case scenario (for him) bring Bilawal back to head the Party, at least nominally while retaining his position as President. But that possibility appears remote at the moment. It is more likely that a Court battle may be in the offing in case of an adverse decision from LHC. Interestingly, the LHC proceedings in the case were ex parte since lawyers for the President had in the later stages of the case "boycotted the proceedings, expressing dissatisfaction and disinterest in the court after it had refused to hear the petition of the federation's objection first".
3. Giving up?
A third conjecture is that the PPP government under President Zardari and PM Gilani has come to the conclusion that governance is out of their control now, what with runaway inflation, with growing corruption at every (especially the higher) level, with protests and rioting threatening to spiral out of control, with the government resorting to printing paper currency on an unprecedented scale just to meet its normal expenses (not towards development expenditure which is on hold nor on education which continues on its downward slide), with war on terror not getting anywhere and the Executive just standing by and so on. So it wants to "shed" power but in such a way that it could claim later that a democratically elected government was thrown out yet once again just as on many occasions in the past and thus fight the next elections as a martyr of democracy and victim of provincial bias.
PPP-MQM-PML(Q) tangle
Hectic behind the scene parleys are in progress between PPP and what it called Qatil League while PPP thrashes about desperately to come up with a response to salvage something from the crises it is facing due to MQM's precipitous response to ZM's owning of the "Aman Committees" and his latest attack on the already drifting away chief ally. The talks with Q League have apparently not come to anything yet as we write this and the meeting between MQM Rabeta Committee and the President scheduled on Monday has been postponed while Rahman Malik is in London on his latest round to see on what terms if at all MQM Supermo would agree to rejoin PPP in coalition. Significantly, he was granted audience by Altaf Bhai only after he was made to cool his heels for several days. Everything else facing the country must wait!
(owajid@yahoo.com)