Islamabad gossip and minus-1 formula

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, August 16, 2009
The fact about minus-1 formula

By Tariq Butt

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari and his political aides have reached the conclusion after several sessions of a thorough internal debate that there was a concerted move to drive him out of the Aiwan-e-Sadr.

“The objective behind the campaign, launched by different elements, political and others, is to target and malign one man to get him dislodged,” PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab told The News.

“It was after our in-house, in-depth discussions, participated by the president, that we reached a consensus that a premeditated move was under way to manage the exit of Zardari,” she said.

Last week saw two rather alarming public statements — the first from Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and the second from Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah — came apparently out of the blue that rejected what they described as a minus-one formula, implying the expulsion of President Zardari with the democratic system remaining in place. This created ripples among the less-informed government quarters, which sensed that something serious was simmering under the surface.

More such statements are in store in the coming few days, as scare has hit the presidential circles with the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani camp exuding confidence on the premise that it would remain untouched and unhurt in any likely eventuality leading to Zardari’s removal.

Fauzia Wahab confirmed that the statements issued by the information minister and the Sindh chief minister reflected the PPP’s policy and were duly approved by the president.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar was not available for comments.

However, another Zardari aide, who has been part of the process of making an internal assessment at the Aiwan-e-Sadr, told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that certain “powers” were working on the minus-Zardari formula, which, he said, would not succeed in any case.

He said that in the past too, similar attempts were made to have a PPP without Benazir Bhutto, but they failed, because these were apolitical, unnatural and illogical, resoundingly disapproved by the people at large.

Both Fauzia Wahab and the presidential associate stopped short of naming the non-political power, which they thought had a role in the present campaign, but their conversation left no doubt about whom they referred to.

Another source close to the president said Zardari’s recent assertion regarding having free trade with India displeased many and after that, the campaign was kicked off against him through different people.

“Everyone being slandered in the alleged corruption scandals is the friend of the president, which clearly showed the actual target,” he said, adding that some of these people were accused of similar scams in the past, but none of the accusations could stand the scrutiny of law in courts for years.

The source believed that it was after the success of the Operation Rah-e-Rast in the Malakand Division that the campaign was launched against Zardari.

He said attempts were being made to “use” the prime minister in the anti-Zardari campaign, but Gilani was a “nice man”, who had not fallen in the trap.

The presidential aide claimed that wittingly or unwittingly, PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif was also reinforcing the hands of the powers, which wanted to get rid of President Zardari.

Meanwhile, a friend of an important personality, associated with the government, told The News on the condition of anonymity that all this talk was because the Supreme Court had been asked to constitute a larger bench for hearing petitions against the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

Constitutional experts, including those who supported former president Pervez Musharraf until recently, and influential personalities of different sections of society believed that the case against the NRO was on so much strong footings that everybody believed that the decision would be against the NRO. As a pre-emptive measure, the government has started making a hue and cry to level the ground against any adverse decision of the court.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_det...p?Id=23890