Roving Periscope: Imran-Islamist tie-up forces the Pak Army to push the Sharifs-Bhuttos into an embrace

Virendra Pandit 

New Delhi: Panicked over a jailed former cricket star walking away with the prized terror “assets” it nurtured over the last four decades, the manipulative Pakistani Army, whose authority is being challenged for the first time since 1947, has pushed the two unwilling political dynasts—the Bhuttos and the Sharifs—into an uneasy embrace and to cobble together a rag-tag government whose longevity might be suspect from the day it takes the oath.

As the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi rejected the Army’s and the Bhuttos’ overtures and asked his flock to go the whole hog with the Sunni Islamist outfits instead, the military moved swiftly to bring together the rival Sharifs and the Bhuttos to somehow form a ‘government, at the head of which would probably be former President Asif Ali Zardari in a new avatar.

In the post-poll scenario, the jailed Imran Khan and the Army chief Asif Munir have emerged as the key players–not the Sharifs or the Bhuttos who have become mere puppets of the “system” they have for long been part of.

After several rounds of confabulations, the two main political parties in Pakistan reached a formal agreement late on Tuesday to form a new government following an election mired in multiple controversies after the February 8 vote, the media reported on Wednesday.

Accordingly, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will be backed by the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) in a new administration, they jointly announced.

These two parties won fewer seats than ‘independent’ candidates loyal to jailed Imran Khan, who is facing over 150 court cases clamped by his army-supported political rivals.

The Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party branded the PML-N and PPP coalition “mandate thieves,”  and alleged the vote was rigged to keep his supporters out of power.

More than six days after reaching an initial deal to form a coalition, the PMLN and PPP announced a full agreement on Tuesday. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the PPP, said: “The coalition aims to address the country’s economic crisis.”

Former PM and President of PML-N Shahbaz Sharif pledged “collective action to tackle economic and other challenges.”

He is expected to take the oath as the PM for a second time with the backing of the junior coalition partner, while Zardari, father of the PPP chief Bilawal, will be the coalition’s candidate to become President, an office he previously held. But Bilawal pledged only outside support to Shahbaz, saying the PPP will not join the government in ministries. This will keep the Sharifs on tenterhooks, despite being the senior partner in the government.

The process for electing the PM is a parliamentary vote, which is expected by the end of February. A separate election to decide the next President will also be held in the coming weeks.

It remains unclear who will take up other major government posts.

The contentious February 8 parliamentary election failed to produce a conclusive result.

Despite Imran Khan being behind bars since August 2023 and his candidates forced to run as independents rather than under a single banner, the PTI-backed candidates emerged as the single largest bloc in a shock result. However, their 93 seats in the National Assembly fell short of the overall majority of 169 needed to form a government.

That paved the way for the PML-N, which is led by another former PM, Nawaz Sharif, to start negotiations with the PPP. The PML-N won 75 seats, while the PPP came third with 54.

But with likely backing from smaller parties and once seats reserved for women and religious minority representatives are apportioned, the coalition partners may have sufficient support in parliament to govern, the reports said.

Both parties were part of a coalition that dramatically forced Imran from office in April 2022. Already behind bars since August 2023, he was jailed in January 2024 after being charged with leaking state secrets, which he denies.

The PTI is challenging the poll outcome in the courts and its supporters have staged protests across the country.