Elections again

Though the two PML factions are going through the motions, PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari seems set to be elected president. The MQM had chosen him at a time when the PML-N had not yet chosen Mr Justice (retd) Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui as its candidate. But despite Mr Justice Siddiqui's ethnic origins, the MQM's parliamentarians, both national and provincial, know who they are to vote for.

The MQM provides just one example of the presidential election having far-reaching effects on politics. But by far the most important effect was the final break between the PPP and the PML-N in the centre, and possibly in the Punjab, where it has only been delayed by the PML-Q not having made up its mind which party to join in forming the new government.

The PPP set itself a conundrum when it was decided that Zardari would be the party candidate for the presidency. It deprived itself of a head, apparently without a substitute. The tradition is that a president or governor does not hold even basic membership within a political party. And it is the PPP itself which set this example, with two secretary-generals, Tikka Khan when he became Punjab Governor, and Farooq Leghari when he became President of Pakistan.

Both chose to resign not just from party office, but also from the basic membership of the party. It may be remembered that when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became President of Pakistan, he remained chairman of the party. Paradoxically, that applies to an executive presidency, as that was, at the time Yahya Khan handed it over, to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who retained the executive nature under the 1972 Interim Constitution.

When Bhutto and later his daughter Benazir, became executive prime ministers, they retained the party office of chairman. Co-Chairman in the latter's case. Indeed, she took over the full-fledged chairmanship while PM. Yousuf Raza Gilani is not a Bhutto, but has been made PM, and had no party office to give up at the time of his elevation, except that of ticket-holder.