Pakistan’s Baluchistan province elected a new chief minister yesterday, days after the previous leader was ousted in a blow to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) party ahead of the 2018 polls.
Abdul Qudoos Bezenjo, former deputy speaker of the provincial assembly and member of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) party, was sworn in as third chief minister in four years in the restive southwestern province.
Resource-rich Baluchistan is plagued by violence, perpetrated by both religious militants and nationalist insurgents fighting to keep a greater share of the revenues from gas and minerals in the province.
Security has improved in recent years, though militants still carry out attacks.
The province also forms an important leg of the $57bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) of energy and infrastructure projects that China hopes to build as part of its belt and road initiative.
Bezenjo’s ascent to power follows weeks of political infighting which saw provincial lawmakers from the ruling PML-N party rebel to help the opposition call for a vote of no confidence in PML-N’s Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, prompting him to resign in a bitter blow to his party.
The political crisis had been intensified by speculation, widely circulated in media, that elements of Pakistan’s powerful military were behind efforts to destabilise the region and possibly dissolve the assembly ahead of the senate elections due around March, and the general elections in mid-2018.
“This assembly will complete its constitutional term,” Bezenjo said after being sworn in. “And if somebody made any attempt (to dissolve the parliament) I will fully resist.”
The military, which has ruled Pakistan for about half its history since independence in 1947, denies meddling.
Bezenjo’s election is seen hurting PML-N’s chances at the nationwide senate elections, with analysts saying that the ruling party is now expected to get fewer senators from Baluchistan.
In 2015, the vote for members of the upper house Senate was done through secret ballots of provincial lawmakers.
Historically, Baluchistan’s governments have been weak, put together as a result of hasty alliances and coalitions.
In 2013, when the PML-N won the majority of the seats in the country and the province, they cobbled together a coalition and appointed Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, a middle-class Balochi nationalist as chief minister even though his party was in minority.
After two-and-a-half years in office, Baloch vacated his seat and Zehri, a powerful chieftain and provincial president of the PML-N, became Baluchistan’s new chief minister as part of the famous “Marri deal”.
According to a Quetta-based analyst, the then-chief of southern command Lieutenant General Mohammad Nasser Khan Janjua, who is currently the country’s National Security Adviser (NSA), had wanted Baloch to stay on but Zehri opposed it because his party had obtained a majority of the seats in the province.
Last week 14 MPAs on the opposition benches filed a motion of no confidence against Zehri.
The house comprises 65 members, and 33 members were required for a successful push against the incumbent chief minister.
Quetta’s analysts have cited three possible reasons for the motion of no confidence against Zehri: the first is related to the upcoming Senate elections, the second to Zehri’s alleged loyalty to ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and the third to the overall prism of federal politics.