KARACHI: An all-party Pakistani opposition alliance, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), said on Saturday there was no friction among its ranks after speculation erupted following a comment made by Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to the media on Friday.
In an interview with BBC Urdu, Bilawal said he had been ‘shocked’ to hear former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech during a rally in Gujranwala last month, in which the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo had named and blamed the country's army chief for engineering the 2018 general election which brought Imran Khan into power.
After Friday's interview, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and Punjab government adviser, Firdous Ashiq Awan, said that Bilawal's words were "the last nail in the coffin" of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) — a joint opposition platform formed by the PPP, PLM-N and nine other opposition parties which is holding nationwide protests and calling for early elections.
“Bilawal was the first person to coin the word ‘selector’ in the first session of the National Assembly after the elections, and he has been going after the selectors,” Muhammad Zubair, former Sindh governor and Sharif’s spokesman, told Arab News.
“Mian Nawaz Sharif has just said that these are the selectors ... this is the name of the selector,” Zubair said, and attributed Bilawal’s comment to the way the question had been worded.
"The way Bilawal was asked that question ... whether he was shocked at the speech of Mian Sahab at Gujranwala ... and he said yes, he was shocked,” Zubair said.
“There are no doubts that he was shocked because he didn’t expect it.”
Zubair added the PPP and PML-N remained on the same page in their push to oust the "selected" government of Khan, who they accuse of being installed by the military through a rigged election.
"We believe that we are successful in terms of creating atmosphere and have put a lot of pressure (on the government)," Zubair said.
PDM spokesman Owais Noorani also dismissed Awan's allegation, and downplayed Bilawal’s remarks.
“He (Bilawal) said clearly that if Mian Sahab has said it, he must have evidence... as he is a former three-time prime minister of Pakistan," Noorani told Arab News.
Noorani and Zubair also confirmed that PDM's central leadership would meet in Islamabad on Sunday to discuss the next stage of its strategy to topple Khan's administration.
Sharif is expected to participate in the meeting via video link from London, where he has been since last November for medical treatment.
Analysts say they do not see any major cracks in the opposition movement.
“I don’t see any major cracks in the PDM or PMLN as a party,” senior journalist Mazhar Abbas said.
Abbas said the PMLN was attracting a large number of people in its own public gatherings, which meant its workers and supporters agreed with Sharif’s narrative.
“If the public gathering of Multan and Lahore remain successful, both establishment and PM Imran Khan will have to take another line of action in the absence of cracks within Sharif’s party," Abbas said, referring to PDM's upcoming rallies scheduled for Nov. 30 and Dec. 13.
