The Doomsday Scenario Wattoo and Rwanda
Punjab Chief Minister, Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, has proved himself to be a wily politician and a capable administrator. Where Ghulam Ishaq Khan and late Jam Sadiq Ali, the last two great exponents of the Machiavellian brand of politics in the country, had the benefit of sweeping bureaucratic powers and ruthless force respectively, Punjab’s Sphinx (nobody ever remembers him smiling or showing any other emotion) rules over the roost with a small base of only 16 members of the PML (J) along with an equal number of independents and minority members who joined Wattoo post his accession to power. An increasingly frustrated 100 odd legislators of his nominal PPP allies are kept in the dark and the cold alternately, not to count the 100 odd legislators of his old ally, the PML (N), that he has kept at bay. A vociferous Opposition would love to have him for breakfast but take comfort in the fact that Wattoo has put the PPP in greater discomfort (and as a result, disarray). Hostage to Wattoo’s vacillations, the Punjab PPP rank and file are dissuaded from outright revolt because of the vital PML (J) support (7 NA seats) that props up the Centre.
Losing his own traditional seat in the last elections, Wattoo could only scrape through by the barest of margins in a constituency gifted to him by the PPP. Without casting aspersion on the personality of this able but devious man, one must recognize that this is essentially a reign of the minority over the majority, not the stuff of democracy. Wattoo safely remains in power through a combination of bluff, spreading of political largesse and the “Wattoo shuffle” (a constant movement of the political feet denying anyone a fixed target). On the other hand, the President of PML (J), Mr (holier-than-thou) Hamid Nasir Chattha, symbolically denies any lust for power by refusing cabinet posts but remains blissfully comfortable in blatantly imposing his minority faction over the PPP’s real right to rule in the Punjab.
