This will not be the first time in Punjab that a kingmaker becomes the king himself. In 1993, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo of the PML-Junejo (PML-J), with only 18 seats in the Punjab Provincial Assembly, was backed by the PPP to become the Punjab chief minister. Back then, the Punjab Provincial Assembly had a total of 240 seats -- 121 seats was the magic number required to form the government. The PML-N emerged as the single largest party in the house with 106 seats. Yet, it was forced into opposition. The PPP with 94 seats had the second largest number of seats, followed by the PML-J with 18, independents 17, and other smaller parties 5 seats. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was able to negotiate an alliance with the PML-J and some independent candidates to form the government in Punjab -- on the condition that Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo would become the chief minister of the province.
The primary objective of Benazir Bhutto was to prevent a PML-N government in Punjab.
Provincial Assembly of Punjab has a total of 371 seats -- 297 general seats, 8 minority seats and 66 women seats. The magic number required to form the provincial government in Punjab is 186. The incumbent government alliance has a total of 199 seats. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is the single largest party in the Punjab Assembly with a total of 183 seats. This means that for the party to remain in power in Punjab, it must seek support of at least 3 more MPAs.
Presently, the PTI-led government is backed by 10 MPAs from Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), 1 from Pakistan Rah-e-Haq and 5 independents. The opposition alliance has a total seat of 172 -- 165 MPAs from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and 7 from Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarian (PPP-P).
If the opposition alliance succeeds in dislodging the PTI government, it is highly probable that Elahi’s son, Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, the incumbent Federal Minister for Water Resources, is a ministerial candidate.
In order to take charge of the Punjab provincial government, the opposition alliance will have to win over at least 14 more MPAs. Presently, the game is on.
Pervaiz Elahi, who belongs to the influential Punjabi Warraich Jatt family, is more popular in Punjab than Usman Buzdar, who heads the Saraiki-speaking Baloch Buzdar tribe that is settled in South Punjab.
Prime Minister Imran Khan is reportedly losing support of his coalition partners, and is facing dissent within his party. PTI MPA Abdul Aleem Khan, owner of Samaa TV and Vision Group, leads the Jahangir Khan Tareen faction. Although the actual size of the Jahangir Tareen faction is unknown, it is believed to be strong enough to collapse the PTI government both in the National Assembly and the Punjab Provincial Assembly.
Even within the PTI, many parliamentarians are disgruntled with Khan, especially with his choice of selecting Usman Buzdar as Chief Minister of Punjab. The favourable situation for the opposition alliance would be to muster absolute support of the PML-Q, independents and mutinous elements within the PTI, including the Jahangir Tareen group. In such a scenario, Pervaiz Elahi will be the king.
Therefore, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is in a similar position as Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo was back in October 1993. It will not be the first (or the last) time that the kingmaker decides to be the king. In such a scenario, it will not be unprecedented that Punjab has a CM with only a handful of seats.
If the opposition alliance succeeds in dislodging the PTI government, it is highly probable that Elahi’s son, Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, the incumbent Federal Minister for Water Resources, is a ministerial candidate.
The writer is an expert analyst on South and Southeast Asian domestic politics and foreign policy. He is a PhD candidate at the Institut für Politische Wissenschaft (IPW), Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of Heidelberg University, Germany. He can be contacted at anishmisrasg@hotmail.com