ISLAMABAD - With Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) flexing their muscles to win the tug of war over the chairman and deputy chairman Senate slots, two Pashtoon nationalist leaders are pulling the rope on opposite ends.
As both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Co-Chairman PPP Asif Ali Zardari scramble for gathering numerical strength in Senate for the top slots, two nationalist parties, Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami National Party (PkMAP) despite sharing similar ideologies, have become poles apart on different issues including the controversial change of Pak-China Economic Corridor route.
Mr Zardari in his efforts to shore up allies’ support for winning the two top slots in Senate has invited ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan for a dinner in Islamabad in order to ponder over the name of future chairman and deputy chairman Senate. On the other hand, Pashtoon nationalist leader and chief of PkMAP Mehmood Khan Achakzai is using his strength and stamina to win the tug of war for PML-N, besides utilising his influence to secure the support of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. ANP with its 7-member strength in Senate views the battle for the top slots a battle between Punjab and Sindh arguing the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based nationalist party would support smaller provinces in election of chairman Senate. A senior ANP leader told The Nation that the party had conveyed its reservations to Zardari over the name of Senator Rehman Malik for chairman Senate slot.  “Asfandyar Wali Khan has been invited by Asif Ali Zardari for discussing the matter in a day or two,” he said.
While the two leading parties in Senate, PPP and PML-N, has succeeded in shoring up support of their respective allies in race for supremacy in Senate, the two nationalist leaders - Asfandyar Wali Khan and Mehmood Khan Achakzai - who otherwise share unanimity in views, are lying poles apart on national developments.
Soon after President Mamnoon Hussain amended the ordinance on voting pattern of Fata MNAs for Senate election, ANP stood with the enraged Fata lawmakers decrying the amendment while PkMAP kept mum over the decision only to side with the ruling PML-N. Co-chairman PPP termed the presidential ordinance as an attack on democracy while ANP leaders resorted to unleashing a campaign on social media as a gesture of support and sympathy with tribal lawmakers in National Assembly. Earlier in February when ANP invited leaders of political parties for its all parties conference (APC) about the change of route in Pak-China Economic Corridor, PkMAP chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai did not show up at the gathering.
“We keenly observe PkMAP for its tilt towards Punjab-based politicians. It has offered link roads in PCEC for JUI-F in Balochistan. There is lot of difference between the two parties on political and ideological fronts,” an ANP leader said. During Senate election in Balochistan, ANP had asked one of its MPAs in the provincial assembly to cast vote for the candidate of BNP-Mengal while PkMAP and PML-N had mutual understanding in the exercise.
“I wonder as to how a political party that has lambasted the supremacy of Punjab in its entire career has suddenly started lobbying for the country’s biggest province by taking U-turn from its past stances,” another ANP stalwart said. Political observers believe differences would swell further between the two nationalist parties over the Economic Corridor issue as ANP is not ready to move an inch back from its principal stance on the issue while the PkMAP being an ally of PML-N would not play up the controversy on ethnic grounds.