HE `all-party conference` that Maulana Fazlur Rehman is so keen to host has drawn much attention for all the wrong reasons. The JUI-F chief has been pursuing a joint opposition front to take on the PTI government right from the moment he lost the two national seats he was contesting in the July election. However, some other politicians do not appear as enthusiastic. The politicians he is chasing, and who were once ready to oblige him at his slightest request, are moved by their own respective sets of realities that bar them from joining hands on a multi-party platform aimed at destablising Prime Minister Imran Khan`s government.

Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari hold the key to this conference which is not likely to be held in the next few days. Mr Sharif has been dealing with the affair with typical evasiveness. His failure to yield to Maulana Fazl`s embrace has come on the heels of his long silence regarding politics in the country, which has been variously interpreted by political observers. In any case, Mr Sharif does not appear to mind speculations that he is on the watch list of those whose approval he must earn in order to be politically rehabilitated. In fact, those who think that he is refusing to enter into a combined opposition alliance in order to satisfy some old grudge that he holds against Mr Zardari may be mistaken. Mr Sharif is clearly led by his own interests. The politicians in the country, especially those in the anti-Imran Khan camp, have enough challenges of their own to tackle at the moment to be thinking about settling scores with old rivals. Their focus right now is on how to survive the Imran Khan onslaught that many believe is going to pick up pace in the weeks to come. Maulana Fazl has resorted to conventional logic that the secret to staying alive lies in a unified opposition. Mr Zardari agrees but knows that any opposition alliance he rushes into has to include Mr Sharif. Without the presence of the top leadership of the PML-N, the impression of a weak and divided opposition will persist; it will not be perceived by anyone as a sign of danger to the young PTI government. It will take a lot more than shuttling by an energetic Maulana Fazl for Mr Sharif to realise that he needs Mr Zardari and others by his side.