Major political party leaders participated in a multi-party news conference in Islamabad on Tuesday night. These leaders included President Shehbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).

The leaders said that for the good of the nation, all political parties—including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which Imran Khan founded—should cooperate.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was conspicuously absent. This was especially noticeable because he had declared earlier in the day that the PPP would only assist the PML-N in electing its premier and in providing the required backing for legislative action on an issue-by-issue basis. In addition, Bilawal declared he was withdrawing from consideration for the prime minister position and rejected the notion of pursuing a “PDM-2” administration.

Are the father and son playing good cop-bad cop, or are they at odds over the coalition issue?

When questioned, a top PPP leader disagreed with both proposals, stating that the issue is quite technical and that there is nothing fascinating about all of this. The PPP leader, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that Asif Zardari is the PPP-Parliamentarians president and that it was right for him to attend the news conference to declare the coalition. The PPP leader stated that Zardari had expressed a different political stance from Bilawal when it was brought out that Bilawal had previously discussed doing away with the politics of babas (elders).

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If there was disagreement between the two leaders, he claimed it was ideological or strategic rather than tactical. This PPP leader says that this is actually good since the party will grow because of its synthesis. The leader went on to say that forming a partnership with other parties is imperative if the country has rejected a single mandate.

A PML-N leader asserted, also under condition of anonymity, that the coalition had left it to the PML-N to name its candidate for prime minister. She was asked why Shehbaz Sharif’s name was not revealed during the press conference and was instead made public through a message on X (formerly Twitter), while Maryam Nawaz was named as a candidate for the Punjab chief minister’s office. He voiced his wish for Nawaz Sharif to be the premier and disputed with the idea that Shehbaz knew he was going to be named.

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