LAHORE, Sept 23: After weeks of uneasy and tense relations, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are believed to have moved a step further towards peaceful co-existence in Punjab when the former assured its partner in the provincial coalition of its due share in power.

“Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif has assured us of our due share in jobs, development and cabinet as agreed in the power-sharing formula between the two parties,” the PPP’s Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, provincial finance minister, told Dawn after the first meeting of the PMLN-PPP committee formed on Monday to settle problems and issues that have cropped between them since the formation of the coalition.

The PPP is represented in the committee by its parliamentary party leader and senior provincial minister Raja Riaz and Kaira and the PML-N by Law Minister Sanaullah Khan and its provincial president Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa. The meeting was presided over by Mr Sharif himself to head off any further misgivings between the two coalition partners.

“We have told PML-N leaders (in the province) to enforce the power-sharing formula which gives the PPP 40 per cent share in the provincial cabinet, resolve the problems of our legislators, release development funds to our legislators, and ensure that our recommendation on administrative reshuffle are incorporated in the decisions,” Mr Kaira said.

“We will quit the coalition if the formula is not implemented and our recommendations and proposals are ignored,” he said, adding that the PPP would get the ministries as agreed in the formula.

“The coalition would last only as long as both parties get along together well,” he said.

The relations between the two parties have been quite tense since the PML-N parted ways with the PPP at the centre, accusing its co-chairman Asif Zardari of backing out on his commitments to restore the superior judiciary to its pre-Nov 3 position and becoming president of the nation without repealing the 17th Amendment.

Shortly after quitting the coalition, the PML-N urged the PPP to withdraw its ministers from the provincial cabinet and sit in the opposition. But the PPP refused to oblige and the relations between the two partners worsened during the following weeks.

Mr Riaz’s meeting with Mr Sharif on Monday helped ease tensions between the coalition partners. The two parties have further narrowed down their differences after Tuesday’s meeting.

Mr Kaira said the senior minister had acted in accordance with the instructions of President Zardari when he met the chief minister to resolve the differences between the two parties. But, he added, the meeting took place only after Mr Sharif expressed his wish for the same through the law minister.

Speaking to a press conference earlier, Mr Riaz said the PPP was not hatching any conspiracy against the PML-N and the coalition was functioning successfully.

“We have some reservations about power sharing in the province and conveyed the same to the chief minister who has assured us of our due share.” He said the PPP could review its strategy in the province if its legitimate share in power was not given to it.