MAULANA Abdul Ghafoor Haideri is a loyal man. He has been serving his party, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, and his leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman in different capacities for decades now. But this time around, after being elected deputy chairman of the Senate, he is now also expected to show some loyalty to his province, Balochistan — belonging to which is the reason he was given the sought-after job.

The federal government and the opposition parties had decided that the deputy chairman should be from Balochistan after consensus was reached on making Raza Rabbani the Senate chairman. The idea was to include the smaller provinces in the parliamentary affairs of the Centre or perhaps because taking someone on board from Balochistan has become a trend.

Also read: Rabbani, Haideri sworn in as Senate chairman, deputy

Zafarullah Khan Jamali was made prime minister in the retired Gen Musharraf regime to particularly fight the popular belief that Balochistan is a continuously neglected province. Veteran Baloch politicians are offered high — but often powerless — jobs in the federal set-up to demonstrate that Balochistan is indeed a vital part of the country. And now the Maulana is a beneficiary of that trend.

However, there is a fundamental flaw in this belief of including someone from Balochistan to hope all will be well in future. Balochistan is a politically and geographically diverse place with different ethnic groups and schools of thought. When someone is chosen simply because they are born here, a point may well be made but it hardly makes any real difference. The same is the case with the selection of Maulana Haideri.

The Maulana is no doubt a senior parliamentarian and will know how to go about his business, especially when having the blessings of the ever-there Maulana Rehman. He was born in Kalat in 1957, and after doing an MA in Islamiat from Wifaqul Madaris Al-Arabia joined the Jamiat Talaba-i-Islam. He is a veteran politician. He was a member of the supreme council when Nawab Akbar Bugti was chief minister in 1988. He was elected MPA in the general elections of 1990 and three years later won the Kalat-Kharan National Assembly seat after defeating Akhtar Mengal. He has also served as the parliamentary leader of his party in the Balochistan Assembly and worked as a senior minister in the cabinet of Taj Mohammed Jamali. In 2011, the JUI-F unanimously nominated him leader of the opposition in the Senate. He has also worked as chief whip for his party in the upper house of parliament.

Maulana Haideri has a reputation of being a democrat. He took part in the Jail Bharo Tehreek from the MRD platform. He was sent to jail by Musharraf in 2001 for protesting against US attacks in Afghanistan. He has in fact been sent to jail several times in his political life.

However, the Maulana is a leader of the JUI-F, which obviously is not a Baloch or Pakhtun nationalist party. His party affiliation makes you wonder whether he will be more interested in protesting US aggression in some faraway area of the world than demanding more money for his province.

Most of the dissent in Balochistan comes from the nationalist parties that think their province is run like a colony by the Centre and its true interests are often overlooked. Such groups believe that if they were given the chance to participate in the affairs of the country, the overall situation in the province could improve. Leaders like Hasil Bizenjo mostly reiterate this stand.

Bizenjo, a newly-elected senator of the National Party, was one of the hopefuls for the posts of chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate. He was at one point even rumoured to be the candidate of the ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, for the post of Senate chairman. But former president Asif Ali Zardari had his way and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had to support the PPP candidate Raza Rabbani for the top job in the upper house of parliament.

“Maulana Haideri or Hasil Bizenjo, the situation in Balochistan would most likely remain the same unless someone really committed and honest rises in the province,” says Siddiq Baloch, a senior analyst. He sees the election of the JUI-F leader as deputy chairman of the Senate as a victory of Maulana Rehman and not of the people of Balochistan.

“There should be little confusion about that,” he says.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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