Today both of these leaders are going to meet.
Agenda: For the meeting – nothing. Both have hidden agendas.
Purpose: Zardari wants Nawaz Sharif’s support to get the NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) passed in the parliament and senate to legitimize all the wrong doings (mostly financial) of the politicians. Politicians of both parties are beneficiaries of this bill. At that time Benzir Butto was in the picture as main beneficiary. After her death Asif Ali Zardari got the benefit of his wife plus his own share. So he got double benefit.
A case against NRO is already in the Supreme Court. Zardari is afraid of Iftikhar Mohd Chaudary he may give the decision against NRO then the whole structure of present civil government will collapse, a big problem for PPP. PPP don’t have the capability to survive this shock.
Nawaz Sharif captured this an opportunity to pressurize Zardari to accept his agenda. Nawaz Sharif thinks if the case stays in the Supreme Court he would get a favorable decision that will go against Zardari. So Nawaz Sharif insists the NRO should not be presented to Parliament and Senate. On the other hand Zardari believes he will get the NRO god fathered easily (comparatively) in the parliament. So both leaders have their own agendas.
There is a third stack holder in this equation. That is USA, the main proponent of NRO. When the Pakistani media excited the people against Pervaiz Musharraf and created panic among the Pakistanis. There were some charges against Iftikhar Mohd Chaudary. So he started taking revenge by running his own government within a government by issuing suo motto orders against the government officials. Rest is history.
America was concerned mainly about Afghanistan war and extremism in Pakistan which according to America helping Taliban in Afghanistan. This was the picture at that time.
In this back ground America came up with the solution that keep Pervaiz Musharaf as president and let all the corruption cases against Zardari and Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif family be made null and void. S.M. Zafar the other day mentioned in a TV program that besides America, UK, Saudi Arabia and UAE were involved in this NRO deal.
PPP came to power but so far have not been able to get a handle on the problems. They have a lame duck prime minister. Dead parliament. Ineffective government bureaucracy. Highest corruption. No planning. Law and order out of control. No water no electricity. Extremists are running the country. Zardari has all the powers but no credibility.
Now there are people within the parliament and outside the parliament (people of opinion) who believes Zardari already don’t have the credibility if the parliament rubber stamp the NRO then parliament will also lose the credibility. In any situation Nawaz Sharif and other opposition parties will get the benefit no matter what the outcome is of NRO.
But the third stack holder do care about the outcome. America knows if NRO did not go through (what ever way) the present civil government will fall apart. And there agenda to fight Taliban in Afghanistan will suffer.
When all this turmoil was going on here in Pakistan, Kerry-Lugar bill got approved. Earlier it was Biden-Lugar bill but when Biden became vice president John Kerry took over as replacement proponent. First time in the history of Pakistan Army openly criticized a civil government on accepting such a deal. To cool the matters down John Kerry came to Pakistan and he had meetings with Army Chief and Chief of Army Staff. He also met Nawaz Sharif and only as a courtesy he also met president and prime minister. But his main target were Army Chief and Nawaz Sharif to mustard the support for Zardari.
Next week Hillary Clinton is visiting Pakistan. Main purpose is to put pressure on political actors to concentrate on American agenda of Afghanistan war rather than get tangled in NRO and related issues. So what I think is NRO will go to back burner for the time being.
There is a news that within the Parliament Committee which is reviewing the NRO bill majority of the members do not approve the bill. So the rumor says that Zardari/Yousaf are planning to change the members of the Committee.
