President Pervez Musharraf believes that the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will completely part company as they face several insurmountable issues, while his ally, the PML-Q, holds the contrary view. “Musharraf has repeatedly told us since the PPP-PML-N alliance was formed after the Feb. 18 general elections that the two ruling coalition partners don't have much in common to stay together for too long and will fall apart very soon,” a senior PML-Q leader told this correspondent. After the withdrawal of its ministers from the federal cabinet by the PML-N, he said, the president reminded the leadership of his ally that what he has been asserting has proved correct. However, PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Saiyed are of the firm view that the PPP-PML-N union will continue as they need each other. In their opinion, they will remain together despite facing hiccups as long as Musharraf is there. They say that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif would not totally abandon the PPP because he knows that this would strengthen his archrival, Musharraf, whom he wants to get ousted from the presidency while sitting on the shoulders of PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari. These PML-Q leaders further think that Nawaz Sharif is also aware of the fact that Musharraf would be out to do anything to stop the fall of the PPP led government if the PML-N tried to pull it down. “The PML-Q's declaration that it will not let the PPP government cave in was made at the behest of the president, who keeps urging this party to stand with the PPP,” another PML-Q leader said. However, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat (Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi) are insistent not to be part of the PPP-led government. They do issue statements on Musharraf's insistence that the PML-Q would stand with the government if efforts were made to bring it down, but they don't want to become its part in any way. The abortive presidential move to remove the Chaudhrys from the PML-Q was meant to tell Zardari that the “irritants” have been scrapped and now he should have no objection to accepting the PML-Q as his ally in place of the PML-N at the central and Punjab levels. Another PML-Q leader said Musharraf had taken the initiative to divest the Chaudhrys of the prestigious party status on his own and had not been asked by Zardari to do so. “In fact, the president wanted to deliver the PML-Q to Zardari but failed because of the Chaudhrys' refusal to bow.” PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan's one hour meeting with Shujaat Hussain during a recent Islamabad-Lahore flight had raised eyebrows in the presidency, which had questioned the PML-Q leadership about it. This took place around the same time when Musharraf had asked Chaudhry Shujaat to step down. The airborne session served both sides well. “We want Shujaat Hussain to continue as president of the PML-Q because as long as he holds this office this party can't have any kind of cooperation with the PPP because of his personal enmity with the Bhutto family,” a PML-N leader said. __
