Azhar set to quit party leadership

The president of the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA), Mian Azhar, is set to resign after he was virtually sidelined during the decision to nominate the party's candidate for prime minister.

Azhar resigned in the first meeting of the party winners in Islamabad last month, which the party leaders rejected. This time too, party sources are saying that Azhar is anxious to avoid a resignation and is hoping for a 'face-saving' way out.

Party sources say he himself "brought 50 or so supporters" to each party meeting, and first tendered and then withdrew his resignation after slogans were raised by them in his favour.

Azhar reportedly tried to rally "anti-Chaudhry" elements around him a few days ago and staged a protest against Shujaat at the latest PML-QA meeting.

However, with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain calling the shots with the backing "from the top echelons of power", no notable leader went along with Azhar.

Sources close to the Chaudhry family, meanwhile, hint that Azhar is believed to be behind several recent leaks to the press on the corruption of the party's Punjab chief ministerial candidate, Pervez Ellahi as well as Shujaat himself. Petitions on this basis are already pending before the election commission, seeking the disqualification of the Chaudhrys.

If Azhar does enter into an "open war" with the family, things could get even more interesting.
Corruption

"This is possibly one of the reasons why Shujaat does not want Azhar to resign right now and is keeping channels with him open," stated one source.

Sources close to Azhar, meanwhile, deny these are his intentions, but at the same time say it would "not be hard" to prove corruption by Shujaat and Pervez Ellahi, "should this ever be required."

The cracks now opening wider first appeared in the party ranks when Azhar named Sindh PML-QA president Ghous Bakhsh Mehr for the prime minister's slot when the party's parliamentary leader Shujaat declined to be a candidate.

Azhar floated the name of Mehr, hoping that he might prove a bridge between the Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarian and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement to form a government in the centre and in Sindh. But, Azhar's hopes were dashed by other senior party leaders who supported Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali for the top slot, said party sources.

Azhar was not contacted before Jamali's proposal. Instead, senior party leaders informed him that Jamali's name had been finalised, said a close aide.

During the preliminary consultations after the elections, senior party leaders dropped the name of Mehr and proposed a few others including that of Jamali.

After this decision, Azhar stayed silent and at the end of the meeting tendered his resignation, which, he later took back.

He also floated the name of Khurshid Kasuri but, both Mehr and Kasuri were rejected by the party leaders. Kasuri is known to have been making efforts to put in his own bid for the top slot in national politics.

"Mehr was supported only by Mian Azhar therefore, he was not considered," commented a senior party leader, requesting anonymity.

He said it was true that Mehr was Azhar's favourite, but he gave the name of Kasuri only to mislead the party leadership.

He said it was never decided in any party meeting that the prime minister would be taken from urban or rural Punjab, rather it was finally decided that the candidate for the top slot would be from a smaller province.