Senior PPP leader Hassan Murtaza on Sunday said that unless the PML-N alleviates the PPP’s reservations and includes them in policymaking, their coalition “will not survive”.
There have been tensions between the PPP and the ruling PML-N, with Ali Haider Gilani, PPP’s parliamentary leader in the Punjab Assembly, telling Dawn in June that despite a written accord, the PML-N was trying to back out when it came to implementation of the agreement between the two parties.
Under their written agreement, finalised after multiple rounds of meetings, the PML-N government in Punjab was supposed to take the PPP on board for major administrative decisions and transfer postings in two districts — Multan and Rahim Yar Khan — where the PPP has more lawmakers.
In November, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari delivered a scathing critique of his ruling ally, expressing frustration over the “disrespect” felt by his party despite being in the coalition and unmet agreements between the two parties.
The PPP chairman, in an informal conversation with reporters at Bilawal House, also accused the PML-N of reneging on commitments after the 26th Constitutional Amendment’s passage. He also hinted at a possible review of the PPP’s eight-month alliance in the Centre with the PML-N-led government in the PPP’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting.
On December 18, PPP lawmakers staged a walkout in the National Assembly (NA) in protest of the continued “insulting” absence of federal ministers from proceedings. More recently on December 23, the PPP chairman slammed internet slowdowns and restrictions in the country, calling them “another effort to control and censor citizens” amid his party’s tensions with the government.
