Frenemies forever

Nowadays, 27 December is marked on the calendar of every leader and activist of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) as the day to convene in Garhi Khuda Bux – Benazir Bhutto's ancestral village and final resting place – to commemorate the slain leader's death anniversary. On that date in 2010, President Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower, concluded a seemingly triumphant speech before his party by declaring that the government would complete its five-year tenure. Just a couple of hours later, the PPP's most significant coalition partner, the largely Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), announced it was quitting the federal cabinet. The PPP euphoria was over even before it had sunk in among the rank and file.

The MQM's message was clear: the government could not merely assume that all was well, or that coalition partners would silently acquiesce to rising unemployment, rocketing inflation and the continued poor welfare of citizens. However, the timing of the MQM's decision did raise a few eyebrows. Just a week earlier, on 14 December, the right-wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, had decided to call it quits after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani had shown the door to two members of his cabinet – the JUI-F's Federal Science and Technology Minister Azam Khan Swati and the PPP's Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi – on charges of indiscipline and corruption. Swati had testified against Kazmi before the Supreme Court in a case pertaining to the latter's alleged corruption in the 2010 Hajj arrangements. A day earlier, both men had been warned by the prime minister to end their sparring, but Swati went forward anyway.