Daily Times

It never takes long for marriages of convenience to come under pressure, and it’s usually because certain promises that were made when tying the knot were the biggest priority take their sweet time getting honoured. And so it is happening to the ruling coalition.

If PML-N, which sits atop the 11-party government, thought it would be easy going in a house without any real opposition, it must think again. That’s most likely what Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was thinking when he invited all allies for dinner on Monday night; to iron out differences and find common ground once again.

Yet while most issues, like MQM’s fuss about lack of funds, can be handled rather quickly, others, like JUI-F’s problem with the Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC’s) decision in the Riba case being taken to the Supreme Court, will not wash away so easily. It was JUI-F’s leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman that cobbled together and then spearheaded the PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement), after all, and the party is extremely unhappy about being left out of discussions on what it considers a very important matter.

It has even threatened to walk out of the coalition government because of it. Now here’s a situation where the financial sector, as well as the government, is bound, even duty-bound, to appeal an arbitrary ruling that will stand the entire economy on its head and a crucial government partner won’t let it happen.

The government has surprised critics and displayed the ability to take the bull by the horns lately by announcing one difficult and unpopular yet desperately important policy decision after another. Yet now, it is learning that keeping allies happy might be even harder than keeping the people from rebelling. And here lies the real test of not just PML-N but all coalition members.

If they got together only to fall apart, in a mere two months, they might not be able to handle the optics in the time left before the next general election, which is, at the most, a year or so down the road, not any later.

If the PM cannot put a lid on all these differences very quickly, they will surely snowball and cause far bigger headaches than unpleasant speeches in the house. *