By Raja Riaz

LAHORE: A ‘ring of five’ in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, running the party’s affairs, has created unrest in various tiers of the party leadership in all four federating units of the country.

The PML- N’s organisations throughout the country were dissolved on September 8, 2009 by party chief Nawaz Sharif, with an announcement to re-organise the party by March 23, 2010, but the deadline has been extended to September, as the previous target has not been met.

In the absence of the party’s organisation at any level, its affairs are run by a ‘ring of five’ and all the decisions are taken by it at the Sharif’s Raiwind residence. Nawaz heads the meetings, while opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, MNA Khawaja Asif, Punjab government spokesman Senator Pervaiz Rasheed and Senior Adviser to the Chief Minister Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa are the brains that discuss the matters and take a decision.

On various occasions, Khawaja Saad Rafique and the party chief’s nephew, MNA Hamza Shahbaz, also participate in the meeting.

Since there are no working committees at the central and provincial levels, nor have office-bearers been chosen at any level, every matter is considered by the party chief. Nawaz then takes the issue to his aforementioned core team and takes a policy decision. All the members of this team belong to Punjab, mostly Lahore, while representation from other provinces is minimal. Although they are invited to the meetings, but very rarely – it has happened only twice in 10 months.

This situation has created unrest at different tiers of the party, especially in provinces other than Punjab. Though the leaders belonging to these areas do not speak out loud, they vent out their frustration at various levels.

A senior politician from Sindh, on condition of anonymity, said, “The PML-N is a national party having a strong leadership and is the future of the country. They should consider the ground realities before taking a decision. You cannot take the right decision about Sindh without consulting someone living in the province. Likewise, a person living in Balochistan can tell you better about his province, but the prevailing situation of the party is that a few people from Punjab sit at Raiwind and take decision on an issue pertaining to the entire country.”

“The PML-N leadership should take a wise decision because the PPP doesn’t have a leadership and the current PPP top brass is not acceptable to the people. The PML-N has a strong leader in Nawaz Sharif. There is a vacuum of leadership in other parties and the time is ripe to fill the gap. The party leadership should take wise decisions and include the party leadership of all provinces in the decision-making process. The party takes all decisions in Lahore. We cannot speak up due to the leadership’s pressure, but we’re not satisfied with the situation. You can see that making Senator Khuda-e-Noor the provincial coordinator was criticised. Had the party leadership taken the decision after consulting the people of Balochistan, the situation would have been different,” another senior party leader from Balochistan said.

A senior PML-N leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa expressed similar sentiments. “The party got maximum seats in the province after Punjab, as no seat was won by PML-N candidates in Balochistan and Sindh, but the party tarnished its image in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the issue of changing the name of the province. The party used to have a strong hold in Hazara, its candidates won most of the seats of national and provincial assemblies from the area, but it has lost its grip now, as its decision to change the name of the province damaged the party massively,” the PML- N leader commented.

To a question that Mehtab Abbasi, a noted PML-N leader from Hazara and former chief minister of the province, was a member of the constitutional committee of the National Assembly that recommended changing the province’s name, he replied that the party had changed its stance several times that resulted in the masses losing trust in it.

The PML-N leaders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) emphasised the need to complete the organisational work as soon as possible and take the decisions at a Central Working Committee meeting.

The situation in Punjab is not any different, but the PML-N’s leadership in KP is much more under pressure from the party leadership than in the other provinces.

A senior party leader from Lahore said all decisions were taken by a select group of leaders and most of them are either non-elected or were not present in the country in the past.

All the members of the ‘ring of five’ were unaffected during the Sharif family’s exile, while those who suffered and struggled during that time have become “back-benchers” now.

Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan and Khawaja Saad Rafique were MNAs, Pervaiz Rasheed was out of the country with Nawaz Sharif and Zulfiqar Khosa’s son, Dost Muhammad Khosa, was the naib nazim of his district government after forming an alliance with a Musharraf-backed candidate, Sardar Maqsood Leghari.

Zulfiqar Khosa is also blamed for being in negotiations with those at the helm of affairs at that time. MPA Moonis Elahi, the son of former Punjab CM Pervaiz Elahi, speaking on the floor of the House once, disclosed that an elder of the Khosa tribe used to meet his father during those days. The party leaders, who were roughed up during the Musharraf regime on the roads, have now become backbenchers, while the party’s affairs are in the

hands of others.

The leaders refrain from speaking openly, but say a lot under anonymity. “The beneficiary group is ruling the party, while the resistant group is on the back benches. This is the irony that we were beaten up on the roads, sent to jails, and spent a lot of money from our own pockets to keep the party running. We struggled to bring our leadership back, but we are ignored now. No one asks us, but the ‘photo group’ of that time is reaping all the benefits today,” a PML-N leader form Lahore said while expressing frustration.

The ‘resistant group’ has almost been forgotten by the party and is never considered while making decisions. The party’s former president, Javed Hashmi, is a big example. Hashmi, who spent almost his entire tenure in jail, is seldom seen at the Raiwind meetings. He openly differs with the party’s various decisions.

Another member of the group, Ahsan Iqbal, who has found refuge in defending the party on TV, is also on the backbenches. A PML-N leader had a good reason to be on the backbench, “The friends during your days in power are always different from your friends during struggle. I’m not angry by having this notion in my mind. I’m happy despite being ignored by the party.”