After the elections in 1985, Nawaz Sharif, an urban industrialist made his way to a House of Waderas (landlords) as chief minister. Muhammad Khan Junejo, then prime minister, told members of the Muslim League Parliamentary Group at the time that before the nomination of Punjab’s chief minister, Governor Jilani had showed him a chart of the possible candidates for the job. It depicted Nawaz Shareef with the largest number of MPAs supporting him in the Punjab Assembly. Whether Sharif enjoyed the support of Governor Jilani himself, Junejo did not say. Yet, in a house full of landlords with rural constituents, the idea of an urban industrialist leader was inconceivable without some extra-parliamentary support.
Though Governor Jilani may have been the extra-parliamentary support Sharif needed, considering the political situation of the era, one must assume that the decision of Sharif’s appointment as chief minister also had General Zia’s prior approval.
Sharif’s emergence as a major player on the national political scene is a direct consequence of General Ziaul Haq’s attempt to alter the socio-political landscape of the country’s largest province which had, for a time, also served as a citadel for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The PPP was led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto from Sindh and the party had been popular in the Punjab since its inception in the late 1960s. The PPP swept the elections in the Punjab in 1971 and later in 1977.
Prime Minister Junejo with Punjab Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif
Every usurper requires a support base to survive and prolong his regime. Zia lured the Punjab’s urban middle class, lower middle class traders and industrialists, who had been directly affected by Bhutto’s socialist policies. To achieve both national and foreign policy objectives, Zia also engineered an alliance of the Punjab’s bourgeoisie with religious and sectarian factions of the province.
Zia’s major national objective was to curtail the Movement for Restoration of Democracy, which was a multiparty alliance initially forged by the PPP in 1981. It was led by Begum Nusrat Bhutto and her daughter Benazir Bhutto. The MRD was a coalition of Left-wing parties which included the PPP; the Pakistan National Party, the Awami Tehreek, the Qaumi Mahaz-e-Azadi, the Mazdoor Kissan Party, the Muslim League (Malik Qasim faction) and Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam (the only conservative group in this alliance).
Sharif’s political career can be best described by a triangular wave. A triangular wave has sharp rises and falls contrary to a sine wave. He achieved unimaginable political heights, followed by a sharp fall from grace every time. In his first tenure as chief minister, he countered many moves from the MRD and coup attempts from within the Pakistan Muslim League. Though the MRD never came close to knocking Nawaz out of office, his own party members were nearly successful.
President Zia met Sharif in Islamabad during those turbulent times. This was followed by a Junejo’s visit to Lahore. Perhaps, Zia’s major concern was not to spend his energies in saving Sharif from what was an intra-party coup steered by Pir Pagara, one of his own men, but to erect a B Team in case the coup against Sharif succeeded in the Punjab.
Pir Pagara, who had a pivotal role in this affair, commented that Sharif was a lightweight and that he was praying for the “Gujrati gentleman.”
This Gujrati gentleman was the Punjab’s minister for local bodies Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi. He was initially believed to be in Sharif’s camp but he was among the 70 absentees when Nawaz took a vote of confidence in the provincial assembly. Other prominent members of Muslim League among the absentees during the crucial assembly session were Malik Allah Yar Khan, Sardar Rafique Haider Leghari and Nasrullah Khan.
Pir Pagara’s antipathy for Sharif dated back to the time when he was given preference over Makhdoomzada Hassan Mehmood, who was Pagara’s relative and candidate for the post of chief minister.
There were also rumors during that period that Yousaf Raza Gillani, who was the railway minister in Junejo’s cabinet, might resign from the National Assembly to contest the election from a provincial assembly seat left vacant by Mehmood when he passed away and stage a coup against Sharif at the behest of Pir Pagara in the Punjab.
The chances of an intra-party coup may be low today but in Zia’s Pakistan, intra-party stability was always in danger. One thing which was part and parcel of elections on non-party basis was that when the chips were down, the overwhelming majority of one day could easily become a remarkably small minority the next.
Out of 240 members of the parliamentary group of the Punjab’s Muslim League, 167 voted in favor of Sharif. On October 23, 1986, Sharif shattered the designs of his political opponents when he stood victorious on the floor of the House amidst a prolonged standing ovation by members of the provincial assembly following the vote.
Despite the partial restoration of democracy as a result of the general election of 1985, the civilian setup led by Sharif in the Punjab was finding it hard to assert control over the bureaucracy. Because of the prolonged military rule, the bureaucracy was now accustomed to taking orders from military administrators and when Sharif realized this, he attempted to acquire a competent team of ministers. Now, that the crisis was over, Sharif was now politically in a position to shed the incompetent ministers on his team, along with Pir Pagaro’s men who had conspired against him during the crisis. After this theatrical show of force in the Punjab Assembly, Sharif sacked his cabinet of ministers to form one of his own choice. It was Sharif’s very first roar.
