Pakistan Muslim League (Q)

Pakistan Muslim League (Q)

The Pakistan Muslim League-Q (Urdu: پاکستان مسلم لیگ ق; Acronyms: PML(Q), PML-Q, PMLQ) is a centre-nationalist political party in Pakistan. Currently representing roughly 23.0% of votes in the Parliament in the latest parliamentary elections held in 2008. It is also currently the ally of Prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf led-government, and major ally of Pakistan Peoples Party in Punjab and Balochistan provinces against its rival Pakistan Muslim League (N), a western conservative and centre-right force.

Initially its leadership and the members were once part of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) presided by former prime minister Navaz Sharif, but after the 1997 general elections, the political differences arise that ultimately led the creation of the faction of its own inside the party. The party's dissidents led by Shujaat Hussain rose their voices calling for the strong and vocal support for the 1999 military coup d'état staged and led by then-Chief of Army Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Pervez Musharaff. In 2002, dissident leaders formed and launched the party platform, focusing onto General Musharraf military regime, later became an integral part of Musharraf's government after appointing its own Prime minister, Shaukat Aziz. The leader of the dissidents, Shujaat Hussain was named party's president, while party began the annihilation of PML(N)'s structure. The full advantage was taken by President Pervez Musharraf who granted opportunities to the party with an initial and focusing goal of exclusive support of the government and to lessen and diminish the public support of Navaz Sharif in the country. The National security adviser Tarik Aziz had played a pivotal role who "had engineered the idea in advance of the elections of 2002 of converting the PML(N)'s centre-right ideology back to centerism, PML(Q), the Q standing for "Quaid-e-Azam". However the engineered idea collapse when PML (N) did emerged as the largest conservative front as well as the largest opposition party in the parliament. Furthermore, the party suffered many setback in post-elections when its members began to disintegrate after forming the separate bloc with close association with the PML-N, first being the Like-Minded bloc and Avami League bloc and second, the former president's bloc. Senior members either proceeded to join the PML-N, while the junior leadership defected to Pakistan Movement for Justice.

Although in early stages and even after the recent elections, it was rumored the existence of the party might be difficult but this was proved wrong when the party performed extremely well despite the predictions. In September 2010, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) joined its similar ideological faction, the PML-F, forming the Pakistan Muslim League (Pir Pagara), but this was short-lived when in May 2011 the party joined the Yousaf Raza Gillani led-government to fulfill the gape left by its rival PML-N. However, the party announced its resignation from the Parliament, citing the failure of the Pakistan Peoples Party to resolve the energy crisis as the reason, which had direct impact on federal government and situation become better by giving releief in fuel prices on 15-jun-12.