The PML-N will field a very respectable and honourable person as its candidate for the president's post as its coalition with the PPP is almost over, a top notch PML-N leader said in Lahore, deeply regretting that the PPP leadership had wasted a God-given opportunity to politicians to reassert their collective right to rule the country.The leader told me at the Club Road Secretariat of the Chief Minister the coalition could now be saved only if Asif Ali Zardari showed political maturity and grace instead of displaying insecurity and immaturity, which he had done in the recent weeks and months breaking every public and private promise he had made, whether verbal or written.
The PML-N leadership is almost in a state of mourning after what is now being considered as the death of a dream which, the party leadership claims, was kept alive by Mian Nawaz Sharif by showing extreme patience, maturity and vision, despite repeated and embarrassing betrayals by Zardari.
"We were trying to show to the world and our military and civilian establishment that the politicians have learnt their lessons and they would now practice the politics of principles, never indulge in petty power politics and lead by example, sacrificing their personal and party interests for larger national causes," the PML-N leader said.
"But Mr Zardari could not pull himself out of the groove of grabbing key positions, rewarding his cronies and friends and never overcoming the fear factor," the leader said. This PML-N assessment will be presented before a key kitchen cabinet meeting of the party bosses at Raiwind on Sunday and a full party Central Executive Committee meeting on Monday to decide the party policy after the coalition is formally declared dead and buried.
The party leadership thinks Mian Nawaz Sharif did his best to persuade Zardari that restoring the judges would be the best thing the politicians could deliver to the nation as a free and fearless judiciary would keep an eye on every other institution.
"But the PPP leader is stuck with the NRO and fears that if it is reopened, he would again have to face the dark shadows of his past," the PML-N leader said, stressing that Zardari does not realise that failure of the political process will also inevitably lead to the collapse of the system and then the shadowy past would again be revived.
"He thinks by grabbing power and dominating every decision-making institution he was pre-empting the inevitable. He is sadly mistaken because the PML-N has taken up all the national issues based on principled stands and had thus received massive support but Mr Zardari's political moves have been looked down and condemned by every section of the society, including even the serious and saner elements of the PPP itself."
The top PML-N leadership is thus awe-struck by Zardari's blatant political somersaults, sometimes even within hours. They recall that Zardari himself feels that his own word is now without any weight and his credibility has sunk, not only in the masses but also among his own coalition party leaders. The PML-N leader narrated the story of how at one recent meeting, Zardari asked for a copy of the Holy Qur'aan so that he could swear by it and Mian Nawaz Sharif could believe what he was saying. Sharif told him to keep the Holy book out of politics. There is a deep feeling of hurt and betrayal in the PML-N camp yet there is a strong determination that come what may the party would continue to practice the politics of principles because within a few months, when the system would be unable to sustain the burden of lies, deceit, betrayals, dirty tricks and corruption, these very acts would be used by the establishment against the PPP and all those who support it. "Then we will stand upright and be vindicated by the masses." The leaders believe that left on his own, Zardari will self destruct as already the limited and experimental transfer of power has started to get to his head. "We were trying to keep him on the ground so that the political class as a whole does not get the blame but there is a limit to what can be done. His case is now getting beyond repair."