It doesn’t take much to become the chief minister of Balochistan—you don’t need to have much of a track record, or the people’s mandate. Just ask Abdul Quddus Bizenjo of the PML-Q who became the third CM in this government’s five years on Saturday. Only 544 people voted to make him an MPA in 2013.
In Bizenjo’s case all it took was the resignation on Jan 9 of the PML-N’s CM Sardar Sanaullah Zehri who found himself suddenly at the centre of a storm. On Jan 2, Bizenjo and Syed Agha Raza submitted a no-confidence motion against Zehri signed by 14 lawmakers. “The chief minister’s advisors were not good,” said Bizenjo. “The government machinery was not functioning well. That is why we started this movement along with our friends.” In order to survive it, Zehri needed 33 MPAs from a house of 65. The motion was backed by a large number from his own PML-N.
Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had advised Zehri to face the motion. “Zehri knew he wouldn’t be able to get enough votes to diffuse the tension,” said a senior official of the former Zehri-led set-up. “That’s why he ignored Nawaz Sharif’s directives to fight back rather than make a deal with PML-N dissidents.” This much was confirmed by Jan Mohammad Buledi, spokesperson for the National Party, a former PML-N coalition partner here. The NP did not take part in the election of the new CM, stating that it would have backed Zehri in a no-confidence vote. However, three NP MPAs, former finance minister Khalid Langove, Fateh Buledi and Mujeeb Ur Rehman Mohammad Hassani, voted against Zehri in defiance of party position.
A no-confidence motion was filed again CM Sanaullah Zehri on Jan 2
In this crisis, Akhtar Mengal took an uncharacteristic step by supporting Bizenjo. Historically Mengal has always opposed establishment-backed parties such as the PML-Q. “Mengal committed political suicide,” said Manzoor Baloch, a former journalist. “Zehri, along with the PML-N and the PML-Q, played a role unseating Mengal as chief minister in 1998. Now Mengal has done the same thing.”
According to sources within PML-N Balochistan, Zehri made a deal that he would resign on condition that his secretary Ayub Qureshi, who had been arrested by NAB in Karachi on corruption charges, would be freed. Qureshi was released the day after Zehri resigned. Both left for Dubai after the new CM was sworn in.
Mere hours after he took oath, Bizenjo inducted 14 members to his cabinet. Former PML-N coalition partners PkMAP and NP are now the opposition. The JUI-F gets the deputy speakership.
What led to this
There are several factors behind the change of power. The first one being cited is an intervention from PPP’s Asif Zardari. Everyone noted how, after the swearing-in, Bizenjo rode in a car with Zardari’s close aide PPP central leader Senator Abdul Qayyum Soomro. This more or less confirmed the assertion that the PPP leadership played a role in the crisis. “[The PPP’s] Soomro stayed at the only five-star hotel in Quetta to oversee the process,” said Rahim Ziaratwal, a former minister of PkMAP. “He, along with the newly elected cabinet members, celebrated Bizenjo’s victory.”
The second factor being given is a desire to punish coalition partner PkMAP. “A majority of the members were not happy with PkMAP nor the establishment, following their alleged connection with Afghan government,” said a senior official of government.
Two other reasons were a desire to punish PML-N’s Nawaz and the unhappiness of neglected MPAs. PML-N’s Sarfraz Bugti, who Zehri sacked as home minister, was the first MPA to launch the campaign to unseat him. After Zehri left, Bugti tweeted a portrait of Benazir Bhutto with a poll asking which party he should join. “Zehri was ignoring party colleagues and ministers were not getting their funds,” Bugti said. He complained that coalition partner PkMAP was receiving more benefits than elected PML-N members.
PML-N insiders insist, however, that the anti-Zehri campaign started after Nawaz Sharif attended a public PkMAP gathering in Quetta organized for the death anniversary of Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, the father of Mehmood Khan Achakzai. CM Zehri had attended but dissident PML-N members had not.
No direct blame fell on the military establishment for meddling in the elections but PkMAP Senator Usman Kakar said his party’s MPAs had received threatening calls from unknown numbers, urging support of Bizenjo.
Jhao to Quetta
Bizenjo’s election as CM is an accurate reflection of the politics of Balochistan, a place where politicians have more power than political parties. No one loses any sleep on low voter turnout.
In 2013, Bizenjo was elected from the militancy-stricken Awaran (pop. 121,680) with 544 votes, the lowest margin ever for an MPA in recent history. Separatists boycotted the election and warned people to stay away; less than 2% of eligible voters or 863 people voted. Awaran is the home of guerilla commander of the banned Baloch Liberation Front Dr Allah Nazar Baloch.
“It is not only because of militancy or warnings that people did not show up,” says Shabir Rakhshani, a journalist from Awaran. “Actually, people are disappointed [here] because not a single government was able to provide basic facilities like roads, electricity, healthcare and education. Unemployment is a major problem.”
The Bizenjos have been in power for years. Their hometown of Jhao is one of the most backward one with no infrastructure, electricity, roads, and people have to travel to Karachi if they want to see a doctor. It is from here that the new CM’s father Majeed Bizenjo won four consecutive elections from 1985 to 1993. He was defeated in 1996 by Aslam Gichki. In 2002, his son, Abdul Quddus, was elected MPA for the first time. He was defeated in the 2008 elections by the son of the late Aslam Gichki, Qambar.
When 2013 rolled around, Abdul Quddus Bizenjo won only because a majority of voters did not turn up.
Now Bizenjo said he intends to change the way decisions are made, implying that in the past they were made outside the province. “From now on,” he announced, “important decisions about Balochistan should be made in Balochistan.” His soft words for former CM Zehri were a clear indication of a deal.
PML-Q
Bizenjo’s PML-Q holds only five of the 65 seats in Balochistan making it one of the smallest parties in the assembly. It should be impossible to get anyone from this party elected leader of the house. But this is a province where an outdated tribal system, a low literacy rate, poor infrastructure and the interference of the “military establishment” make such things possible.
In Balochistan, unlike in other provinces, the PML-Q and the PML-N are interchangeable. It is not so much party affiliation as individual effort or tribal status that wins elections. In many areas there is no party structure to speak of. Zehri himself only joined the PML-N in 2010, just three years ahead of the elections.
This is not just the case with the PML-N and PML-Q. The PPP, which ruled Balochistan from 2008 to 2013, could not win a single seat in 2013. Switching loyalties is common. Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti, for example, was elected an independent MPA but later joined the PML-N.
Bugti and Bizenjo both played a key role in the no-confidence motion and the two men have much in common. Both are vocal opponents of separatists, supportive of operations and against talks with hardliner Baloch leaders. Both men are from troubled areas and won their seats during a very low voter turnout. Bugti was elected from Dera Bugti, where over 100,000 Bugti tribes people were displaced during military operations in 2005 and 2006. The situation deteriorated after the assassination of former CM Nawab Akbar Bugti. The total population of Dera Bugti is 312,603, but with such a huge number of potential voters displaced, Sarfraz Bugti was able to win election with 10,013 of the 17,876 votes cast.
Shaky ground
The Balochistan government has always been fragile. No single party enjoys an absolute majority. National Party spokesperson Jan Muhammad Buledi says a person or party doesn’t need a majority to win an election—securing 15% of the votes is enough to win. The province has always had low voter turnout. In 2013 it was 40%, the lowest in the country. In 2008 it was 31%.
Fragility is also the mark of this assembly. The PML-N has 21 out of its 65 seats, the PkMAP 14, NP 11, JUI-F 88, the PML-Q 5, the BNP 2 and the ANP and Majilis Wahdatul Muslimeen one member each. Yet despite having a majority of members in the assembly, the PML-N was not able to save its CM.
Individuals make the government in Balochistan. Once in power, they try their utmost to form a government of the same party as the one ruling at the federal level. This makes it much easier to secure funds and projects, though, truth be told, precious little money is ever spent on actual development here.
To anyone attending a Balochistan Assembly session it soon becomes clear that members are there to make money. When PTI head Imran Khan staged a sit-in in 2014 and there were strong rumors that the government might be toppled, PML-Q Balochistan Assembly member Abdul Karim Nausherwani stated from the floor of the house, “We have not yet paid back the money we borrowed during the elections. We must stop Imran from toppling the government.”
He did not stop there. A year later, during the 2015 Senate elections, he stated openly in front of the media that those who had money would win the seat and those who didn’t would lose. This sort of horse-trading is far more visible in Balochistan than in other provinces. The PPP has simply taken advantage of the crisis to ensure its success. All assembly members are vulnerable. The way things stand, any party, needs such individuals if it is going to succeed in forming a government. And if they are not kept happy, the government cannot hold onto power.
Former CM Nawab Raisani used to say that it was hard to control ministers because they acted like vultures and always wanted funds. Raisani, whose cabinet numbered over 50 ministers, tried to please everyone in an effort to complete his tenure. According to journalist Siddiq Baloch, it is hard to sit in opposition. “The majority of the MPAs don’t live in Quetta, the provincial capital, and they are always interested in free housing, a free car and other perks and privileges,” he said. “That’s why everyone wants to be part of the government.”
This is not the first time irritated PML-N members have turned on the party. In the last Senate elections in March 2015 it was embarrassing when the party’s senior vice president Sardar Yaqoob Nasir was not able to win a seat despite having the support of 28 MPAs in the 65-member house. The PML-N was able to hold onto only three seats while its smaller coalition partners, the NP and PkMAP, also won three seats each even though they had only 11 and 14 MPAs. One cannot claim, therefore, that that this crisis has anything to do with upcoming Senate elections. Members have always voted for whoever they want, sometimes electing Senators with no party affiliation at all. No party head can stop horse-trading in Balochistan.
“The current government is not strong and could be ousted too,” warned PML-N minister Mir Asim Kurd Gello. “Nothing is certain in Balochistan.” Others believe that the government will barely last a few months or will be forced to join the PPP.
NP’s Buledi believes it will not end here. “It started from Balochistan and will end by toppling the Lahore, Sindh and KP governments,” he said. PkMAP’s Senator Usman Kakar and former minister Rahim Ziaratwal said the same things. “Democracy is in danger. It will not end here in Balochistan.”
The writer is a freelance journalist and studying at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication
