Sharif's cabinet nominations shake Punjab, Norhtwest coalitions

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's hesitation in including nominees of the Mohajir Quami Movement and the Awami National Party in his cabinet has begun to strain coalition arrangements in the Sindh and the Northwest Frontier provinces of Pakistan.

Sharif's Muslim League has got a two-third majority in the largest (population-wise) province of Punjab but in the Sindh and the NWFP it has opted for a coalition government with the MQM and the ANP, respectively. The two parties had stood by the Muslim League during difficult times in the opposition.

In Sindh, the Muslim League was the third largest party after the Pakistan People's Party and the MQM. None of them got enough seats to form a government. Under an agreement between the MQM and the Muslim League, the former agreed on a Muslim League chief minister (Liaquat Jatoi) on a promise that it can have its nominee as the provincial governor. Sharif also promised a berth for the MQM in the federal cabinet.

Two weeks after this agreement, the Muslim League has failed to fulfill its commitment. The MQM has given three alternative names for the post of provincial governor. So far the federal government has not approved of any of them. Similarly, it has not so far taken an MQM nominee in the cabinet.

The MQM, which had insisted on having a Mohajir chief minister, feels it has been diddled out of this post on a promise on which the Muslim League is now dragging its feet.

Its leaders have warned of adverse effect on the coalition experiment in Sindh if the Sharif government continues to flout the agreement.

In the NWFP, the ANP leaders are furious. They have learned if their party's nominee Azam Hoti is not taken in Sharif's cabinet the party would not like to stay in the provincial coalition government. Here, in a house of 80 members, the Muslim League has 31 seats while the ANP has 28.

The ANP had agreed to have a Muslim League chief minister (Sardar Mahtab Ahmed Khan) on the promise that the party would have representation in the federal cabinet.

There are reports that Sharif does not have a free hand in choosing cabinet colleagues. It is said that leaders of the ANP and the MQM are still not in the good books of the establishment, which means the president, the army and the bureaucracy.

UNI