Pakistan: PML-N’s troubles within

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have done his best to woo back Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan but friction between the two has merely deepened the divisions within the ruling party in the garrison city. Rawalpindi’s party organisation is by now effectively divided into three groups of which the rivalry between the Sardar Naseem group (patronised by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan) and the Hanif Abbasi group (patronised by Hamza Shahbaz) is an open secret.

As recently as Thursday, July 24, the Iftar held by PML-N Rawalpindi was attended by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and other ‘likeminded’ N Leaguers but Hanif Abbasi and his allies were not even invited. These divisions date back to last year’s general election when the party lost three seats in Rawalpindi district to PTI. This relatively poor performance was blamed on Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan – most of the tickets had been awarded on his advice.

As a result, his influence weakened as soon as the party formed the government in Punjab after May 2013.

In last tenure of the PML-N, most bureaucratic and police appointments in all the four districts of Rawalpindi Division were made on his recommendations. But after the 2013 elections, Hamza Shahbaz – unofficially – began calling the shots in Rawalpindi Division including in the appointments of officials.

“Hamza Shahbaz wanted his handpicked men in Rawalpindi while ignoring the old workers,” said a PML-N worker. Consequently, even the local leaders close to Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan were sidelined. The faultlines deepened with Hanif Abbasi’s appointment as chairman of the monitoring committee for Metro Bus Project.

A senior PML-N leader, who did not want to be named, said: “Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was not in favour of Abbasi being given such a high profile post,” adding that Abbasi is said to be close to Khawaja Asif, Hamza Shahbaz and real estate tycoon Malik Riaz.Riaz works in collaboration with the political rivals of Khan in Rawalpindi. Similarly, Asif and Khan reportedly do not even talk to each other.In fact, Khan’s discomfort with Abbasi was such that he tried to reconcile Sharif senior with Sheikh Rashid.

“Before May 11, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan tried to bring Sheikh Rashid Ahmed back into the PML-N fold but Nawaz Sharif refused to accept him,” he said.

He explained that had Rashid returned to the PML-N, Hanif Abbasi would have become irrelevant – Abbasi is now the PML-N candidate for the seat that Rashid traditionally used to win for the party till 2002 when he joined then president general Pervez Musharraf.

One party man points out that the divisions were made clear on the occasion of the cricket match for IDPs in Rawalpindi on July 19.

The PML-N parliamentarians from Pindi - Tahira Aurangzeb and Malik Ibrar – as well as some of those who had contested the 2013 election but lost - Sardar Naseem, Malik Shakil Awan – attended the event but refused to meet Punjab Law Minister Rana Mashood in the presence of Hanif Abbasi.

He had to meet them separately after the match at the Commissioner’s Office.

This is not the only tell tale sign of the troubles within.

Sardar Naseem and Malik Shakil Awan are also members of the monitoring committee for Metro Bus Project but they have refused to attend the committee meetings.

“Sardar Naseem, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry and Malik Shakil Awan attended the first meeting of the Metro Bus Service Monitoring Committee and then they stopped coming,” said a senior official of City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) requesting not to be named.

A senior party leader claimed that those who no longer attend the meeting are not taken on board. “We were not invited to a meeting held in Lahore two weeks ago. When we have no role in decision making, then why bother attending the meetings,” he said.

When contacted, Sardar Naseem said that he was busy with party work in “Gujranwala and the Rawalpindi Divisional affairs” while Malik Shakil Awan told Dawn that “my presence is not necessary in such meetings.”

According to an official, the differences have kept the PML-N party office on Iqbal Road closed for the last one year.

Once Sardar Naseem lost PP-12 in 2013, those who oppose him wanted fresh party elections. However, Naseem and those close to him (including Chaudhry Nisar) did not encourage a fresh election.

But observers claim that to avoid the opponents, Sardar Naseem stopped using the Iqbal Road office and now operates out of a room in the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) offices. When contacted, Naseem admitted to the groupings within the party. “One group is of the old workers while the other is being patronised by some leaders from Lahore.”

However, while he insisted that groupings were not unusual in political parties, he added that some newcomers would end up harming the party.

He added that he and others were held responsible for losing some seats in last year’s election as the party announced the tickets 19 days before the polling day. “However, the party also lost the seat where the candidate “had been announced five years ago.”

This was an indirect reference to Abbasi, who lost a seat in Rawalpindi city.