Who Will be the Next FM?

By Adnan Rehmat – 

While all eyes are focused on the PM’s office, equally interesting it is to figure out who could fill the top diplomat’s slot

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Has the ring of déjà vu about it. If the PML-N wins enough seats to work out a coalition to rule Pakistan effective May 2013, then seeing the first person in the country’s history to have been elected as chief executive thrice wouldn’t seem out of place.

In fact, few will mind — he has enough of a halo around him and dollops of experience running the country to risk discounting him. It’s impossible to imagine anyone other than him being the prime minister if his party wins.

Prime Minister Imran Khan. Now that will literally be the change he has been promising. Would PTI accomplish the sweep to sweep all electoral sweeps — like the ones that brought Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to power not once but twice (the second being short-lived, literally speaking, as the country’s first elected prime minister was hung thereafter) and the second that swept Sharif to the Prime Minister’s House on the back of a mandate so heavy that it eventually sunk him?

Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani? Not possible — he’s not even qualified now. Who from the PPP if they win enough seats to come back? Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf? Unlikely. Prime Minister Amin Fahim? Surely not! Can’t be Makhdoom Shahabuddin as he can’t seem to shake off the courts on his tail.

President Asif Zardari is going to have a royal headache if the PPP somehow wins (maybe not because people want the party back in power but maybe because Imran manages to split Sharif’s votes enough to give Zardari a default win).

But while it is little easier to guess who would be Pakistan’s new prime minister considering that it is usually the guy who heads the winning party — or at least has his total confidence as the PPP showed in 2008. Both the PPP’s prime ministers — non-Bhuttos, a first for the party — were virtually second-in-command, Gilani being party senior vice president and Ashraf being secretary general. Sharif and Imran would be the undisputed prime ministers if their respective parties won.

But predicting who will be Pakistan’s next foreign minister is just as interesting albeit uncertain given the vagaries of Pakistan’s politics. The plummest job after the prime minister’s is the foreign minister’s. More so in our context as a nuclear armed, politically unstable and economically fragile Pakistan demands the world’s attention on virtually a daily basis and it needs to talk to someone in Islamabad regularly. And no other job comes close to being given virtually the same level of protocol as the head of state or government as the foreign minister does.

Outside the country the foreign minister is as good as the chief executive.

So who could be Pakistan’s next foreign minister? The PTI has in its ranks at least three candidates who have previously served as the country’s top diplomat. Shah Mehmood Qureshi served as FM for nearly three years (March 2008 to February 2011), Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri for a full five years (November 2002 to November 2007) and Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali three years (November 2003 to November 2006).

However, Ali is highly unlikely to be PTI’s nominee for FM as he was denied a party ticket and is running as an independent candidate against the party’s official nominee. He hasn’t been kicked out of the party though nor has he quit himself.

Considering that Qureshi is higher in the party hierarchy than Kasuri, he stands a better chance of being the FM. Unless PTI also sweeps Punjab Assembly elections and requires a chief minister — a scenario that will pitch both Qureshi and Makhdoom Javed Hashmi as candidates for the coveted post. If Imran plumps for Hashmi as the Punjab chief minister then Qureshi will certainly be FM. Otherwise, it will, in all probability be Kasuri — assuming that all three win their seats, of course. Qureshi served as PPP’s FM for Asif Zardari, Kasuri as PML-Q’s for General Pervez Musharraf and Ali as PPP’s for Benazir Bhutto.

In a scenario that puts PPP back in the saddle, the ultra-cautious Zardari is likely to play it safe by bringing back Hina Rabbani Khar as the FM. She can be already considered elected as she is this time not running for office on a general seat but placed at Number 2 on PPP’s list of candidates on women’s reserved seats for the National Assembly.

She served as FM for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. She is widely seen as one of Pakistan’s most successful top diplomats at a difficult time, someone who would have impressed even the skeptical Benazir Bhutto. Khar’s only likely rival could be Sherry Rehman who has done an equally impressive job as ambassador to Washington. Like Khar, Rehman is also all but elected being on the list of PPP candidates on the reserved seats for women.

Things get muddier when it comes to second guessing Nawaz Sharif for the position of FM should his PML-N romp back into the corridors of power for a record third time. The two persons that served as his FM are not contesting elections this time. One is Sartaj Aziz, who served as top diplomat between August 1998 to October 1999, and the other is Gohar Ayub, who remained in the hot seat between February 1997 to August 1998.

Of the two, Aziz is too old for the heavy duty international travel — he is in his 80s now — while Ayub is promoting his son to replace him in politics while he is himself content with backroom wheeling dealing having just returned to the PML-N fold.

Despite being a party of heavyweights, the PML-N has traditionally neither had a strong FM nor one who served more than 18 months. It is likely to struggle to name someone who can do justice to a five-year stint for PML-N. Whoever it will be, will be a wild card entry. Provided they win their seats, it could be Khurram Dastagir or it could be Marvi Memon. Or it could even be former FM Aseff Ahmad Ali if he wins and joins PML-N. He is running as an independent candidate and is angry enough with both PPP and PTI for some shoddy treatment to teach them a lesson.

Another top ranker for PML-N who may be the surprise FM could be Khwaja Asif. He is currently eyeing the slot of the next Punjab CM because it is rumoured that Shahbaz Sharif way be the minister for a proposed federal jumbo ministry of energy (created from the merger of the ministries of petroleum and water & power).

But in such a case he faces stiff competition from Nisar Ali Khan, who also wants to be the Punjab CM. In case Khan wins this battle, the only other high profile ministry left for him would be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The writer is a media development specialist and analyst. He heads Intermedia, a media support NGO