Pakistan: Analysis: Trouble brewing within PTI in KP

Eleven months in power, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is already in trouble.

The number of PTI dissident members in the provincial assembly has now risen to 20 — with more coming to join the flock — and there is a good number of party parliamentarians in the National Assembly who also have issues with KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.

It is said that while the PTI’s dissident provincial lawmakers have issues with the party’s central leadership over recent inductions in the cabinet, those from the National Assembly lambaste Khattak for his attitude towards them.

The dissident provincial lawmakers wouldn’t speak to Khattak and wanted to directly speak to PTI supremo Imran Khan to find out, in the words of one key dissident member, who makes decisions in the party.

And the dissident federal legislators — now believed to be 14 in number — have already spoken to Khan. They don’t want to have anything to do with the chief minister. Their patience with the chief minister has run out, a party lawmaker in the National Assembly confided. They may also form a forward bloc and the party chairman knows it, the lawmaker said.

There were troubles within the party right from the word go, when the first batch of ministers took the oath in June last year. There were loud grumblings amongst the unhappy lot, a large number of ministerial hopefuls.

Khattak moved quickly to induct an unprecedented number of advisers, special assistants and parliamentary secretaries and chairmen of district development advisory committees to stamp out dissent.

Soon enough, the ridiculously large number of parliamentary committees posed another challenge. The government could not find enough members available with it to lead the many standing committees. So some of the parliamentary secretaries had to be shunted out to make room for chairmen of the standing committees. But this did not solve the problem.

Things began to heat up again as speculation of a reshuffle in the cabinet started doing the rounds, apparently citing performance as the key factor.

But while the replacement of the minister for health did generate some controversy, it was the induction of new ministers that caused a furore amongst those waiting on the sidelines, hoping to find a berth in the cabinet.

If the speculation was not enough, coming soon on the heels of a tug-of-war between the chief minister and Khan-backed chief secretary in KP were also rumours that Khattak is unhappy with direct interference from influential party figures in Islamabad.

There was speculation, never convincingly laid to rest, that the chief minister had formed his own group of loyalists within the party to forestall any attempt at dislodging him. Media reports to the effect were never contradicted. Understandably, the party is new to power politics and most of its members, save a few, with ambitions and expectations are new to assemblies. There have already been questions about discipline, its enforcement and the way the party is run. Party leaders do not remember when their central executive council last met. Key policy decisions are taken in the core committee, whose number has increased from 15 to 37. How did this happen, no one has a clue. While the core committee is supposed to be elected by secret ballot, it has expanded by leaps and bounds without the party’s constitutional sanction. But when it comes to nominations, they are done by the party chief Khan who, according to a senior party leader, was mandated by the last central executive council meeting to make nominations when and where necessary, pending next party elections. The leader did not remember the meeting’s date. As for those nominated to the KP cabinet, party leaders insist, the matter was decided between Khan and Khattak and the influential figures in Islamabad had nothing to do with it.

Khattak on his part has told those agitating against the latest induction that the decisions to the effect were taken at the top by Khan himself. And this is why, say the dissidents, they want to meet the chairman to clear the air.

Surprisingly, however, with so much happening with the PTI in KP, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz — which can cause an upset and bring down Khan’s government — is watching silently, refusing to be drawn into the conflict. Given the number of PTI-led coalition members and the emergence of the dissident group, Khan’s government in KP is precariously placed. Even without the dissident group, the PML-N, had it really wanted to, could have easily manoeuvred a coup by weaning away the Swabi group, whose leader Shahram Tarakai has, not surprisingly, been made a senior minister and given a key portfolio of health in the latest reshuffle. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, together with Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party and a bunch of other parties in the KP Assembly, is ever keen and ready to pull the rug from under the PTI feet.

But the PML-N, at least for now, is not willing to take the bait. KP is not an easy province to govern, given the state of security in the violence-hit region, but there is more to it.

The PML-N would like to see the PTI government die its own slow death in five years — like its two immediate predecessors — rather than become a pain in the neck in its citadel of Lahore.