President Asif Ali Zardari has stated that the “PPP-led government will complete its mandated five-year tenure.” The MQM, in the meanwhile, has pulled out its ministers from the federal cabinet. And Maulana Fazlur Rehman, having now demanded a new prime minister, had already announced his decision to part ways with the PPP-led government.
What really is the game plan? In Game Theory lingo, the PPP, MQM and JUI are all strategic players taking decisions – anticipating the responses to their decisions by other players in the game – with the aim of maximising their individual gains in a game that is extremely competitive. To be certain, uncertainty rules supreme as no player is certain as to what the other players are going to do.
To be sure, the army is also a hyperactive participant in the game – and so are the PML-N, the PML-Q and the ANP. Military strategists tend to play the game based on a “two-player zero-sum game” whereby one player’s gain must mean the other player’s loss (in other words, if the total gains and the total losses of the players are added up, they will amount to zero). Political strategists play the same game based on a “multi-player non-zero-sum game” whereby the players have an incentive to cooperate, resulting in a situation where more than one player benefits.
Here’s the hierarchy in our National Assembly: PPP, 127; PML-N, 89; PML-Q, 51; MQM, 25; and ANP, 13. The magic number is 172, because that is the number of MNAs that form a “stable cluster” and also the number that indicates how close a cluster is to wining the game.
Under Article 95(1), “a resolution for a vote of no-confidence moved by not less than twenty per centum of the total membership of the National Assembly may be passed against the Prime Minister by the National Assembly.” Under Article 95(4), “if the resolution referred to in Clause (1) is passed by a majority of the total membership of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister shall cease to hold office.”
Here’s the numbers game: A cluster required to fulfil the conditions of Article 95(1) must have at least 69 MNAs, while the MQM-JUI cluster has 33. Assuming that the MQM-JUI cluster can somehow attract an additional cluster of 36 MNAs, the new cluster will still be short of 103 MNAs to fulfil the conditions of Article 95(4).
Who can then be the game-changer – a player or a cluster that can redefine the game? Who can be “the person, the idea or the event” that would completely change the parameters of the current game?
Well, as per the hierarchy in our National Assembly, PML(N) is the lone game-changer and Nawaz Sharif is the only person who can redefine the game. Is Nawaz Sharif going to do it? As things stand, the army and the PML-N are in a state of Nash equilibrium (named after American mathematician John Nash) whereby “each player of the game has adopted a strategy that they are unlikely to change.” Intriguingly, Nawaz Sharif and Uncle Sam are in the same boat – the boat that has PPP in it.
In all probability, Nawaz Sharif will not unilaterally change his current strategy of supporting the PPP, unless the PML-N can secure a larger share of the political pie in return for disturbing the Nash equilibrium. In other words, the PML-N, without additional payoffs, will not bring the PPP government down – and till that happens the MQM and the JUI can continue generating storms in their respective teacups.

Source:
Dr Farrukh Saleem
Opinion Corner
The NEWS INTERNATIONAL