A backflip to reinforce the ‘art of the possible’

Former British prime minister Harold Wilson had once famously quipped that “a week is a long time in politics”. Perhaps, the maths would need reconfiguration with the return of Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat to the fold of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Elected multiple times, the 65-year-old former federal minister from the Jhang constituency of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous – and in terms of critical mass, the power defining – province, Hayat has fallen back on a tried and tested formula to fashion a re-entry into mainstream politics.He was last elected on a PPP ticket in 2002, but made a power grab by turning coat and forming a forward bloc – the so-called PPP-Patriots – to deliver crucial support to the “king’s party” – Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) – propped up by General Pervez Musharraf to give his military rule a civilian facade. Hayat was rewarded with the important interior ministry and continued to benefit from spoils further down the road before the law of averages caught up with him. He was disqualified from contesting the last general elections in 2013 following charges of electricity and irrigation water theft! Politicians changing loyalties is, of course, not uncommon. Hayat’s backflip, therefore, is unlikely to send the news cycle into a tizzy, but offers a colourful spectacle in a frenzied election year eve.To start with, the unforgiving independent media quickly put Hayat on the mat for the controversial re-entry into a party, which historically suffers from serious image problems in terms of probity. Expectedly, the numerous TV channels he graced replayed past footage where he appeared to speak from a vantage point, openly blasting PPP supremo Asif Zardari and his cronies for committing what he claimed was unprecedented corruption that had brought the country to the edge of precipice.To his credit, Hayat even took Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the water and power minister (who, later shockingly, became prime minister), to the Supreme Court, alleging he had received kickbacks in a controversial rental power plant scheme. Old footage aired by most TV channels showed Hayat taking on Ashraf where the former challenges the latter to say on oath – on a holy scripture he pulls out from his shirt pocket in the live broadcast – that Zardari and his cronies were not the recipients of kickbacks in the scam and if he (Ashraf) did, he (Hayat) would quit politics. Ashraf vainly tries to deflect the challenge in the video clip. Eventually, the Supreme Court came to indict Ashraf over the scam, but it came to naught for lack of concrete evidence. The overriding view at the time was that Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice, had a bone to pick with (the-then president) Zardari and wanted (the-then prime minister) Ashraf to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen cases of corruption against his own president that had been closed after the Musharraf regime stopped pursuing it as part of a future power-sharing deal with the PPP that would allow the General to hang up his boots and become a civilian president. Chaudhry, by then, had already dismissed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Zardari’s first prime minister, citing contempt of court for not writing the same letter. Chaudhry’s actions were largely seen as vindictive for Zardari’s refusal to restore the superior court judges, including Chaudhry, that Musharraf had suspended under a sweeping Emergency edict to forestall the possibility of a judgement against his presidential candidature. Zardari had succeeded Musharraf as president after his party won power in the 2008 elections and the latter resigned under the threat of impeachment. Zardari however, reneged on a promise to restore the judges, fearing similar actions from a Chaudhry-led Supreme Court bench. It turned out to be a prescient decision, but one that backfired following a popular street movement that forced Zardari’s hand to eventually restore Chaudhry and his bench. Back to Hayat and his glittering high pitch on the “corrupt” PPP leadership. By then, he had joined the PML-Q, but in a bizarre quirk of fate, Hayat was forced to vote for Raja Pervaiz Ashraf – the very man he had taken to court for alleged corruption – as prime minister following a power-sharing deal between his party and the ruling PPP. Hayat however, refused to serve in the Ashraf cabinet even though his name was duly approved for a ministry under the power sharing agreement. In one fell swoop, Zardari had taken what most pundits saw as sweet revenge - with both adversarial chief justice Chaudhry and party deserter Hayat finding a bit of comeuppance; the latter, in particular, in a classic turn.Last week, Hayat was invited by Zardari to Bilawal House where he agreed to rejoin the party. Indulgent TV talk show anchors rubbed it in to pointedly ask Hayat if he had rediscovered ‘cleaner’ leadership or if he was able to prevail upon Zardari “to mend the corrupt ways of the past” he had once vocally spoken about. Similar posers were made about how, if, he would reconcile with the former prime ministers, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. A squirming Hayat could only comment that he had seen a “new verve” and tried to deflect the posers on the Zardari connection with laboured assertions on the “fresh leadership” of Bilawal Bhutto, the party’s 28-year-old chairperson and Zardari’s son. Interestingly, Hayat had only met Zardari until last week though following persistent questioning, he said without any conviction that he had a word with Bilawal as well. With Zardari reinforcing his stranglehold over the party following his return last month from a long self-imposed exile, it will take some ‘political’ heart for his son to forgive someone who, as a close aide of his mother – two-time prime minister Benazir Bhutto – betrayed her trust while she was still alive. *The writer is Community Editor.