Party games

With thoughts beginning to turn towards an election that now lies just over six months away, the situation of our political parties is naturally something to be contemplated and, perhaps, something to be alarmed about. We can see that the ruling PML-N – which many would have expected just a year ago to take the next election as they did in 2013 – is in a state of complete disarray, with the House of Sharif in grave danger of crumbling and even falling.

In a desperate bid to save it, children and even grandchildren have been brought forward. Muhammad Junaid Safdar, the son of Maryam Nawaz, is being projected as a possible contender for the future of a party that – like too many others – appears to be based on a single family rather than an ideological theme or set of beliefs.

The same, of course, is true of other parties. Even without the accusations of corruption that the PML-N has faced since the Panama leaks affair surfaced in 2016, other parties – including the PPP, which is currently the second-largest political group in the country – appear to have entered a course of self-destruction. The PPP’s virtual non-existence as a political force in Punjab was evidenced in the NA-120 by-election, where its candidate Faisal Mir got fewer votes than the two new religious groups that have suddenly sprung up. Despite the elaborate campaign launched by Bilawal Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari in Punjab and the portions of relative good sense contained in Bilawal’s recent public rally in Sahiwal, there seems to be little hope for the party outside Sindh.

As for the PTI – the party that went into the 2013 elections with the slogan of creating a Naya Pakistan – much has changed. Jokes abound about the manner in which it is led, the often contradictory positions taken by Imran Khan and what seems now to be a desperate attempt to attain that illusive position of prime minister one way or the other. Perhaps Khan should adopt similar tactics to the family in Chitral who simply named their son Quaid-e-Azam and thereby bestowed on him a title without much scramble or bother.

The fate of the PTI has been the talking point of the last five years. Supporters have been lost along the way and it seems that Imran Khan has led with far less acumen than most of us believed would be the case. There are also other powerful groups that find themselves in a completely new situation. Almost like an act of magic, the farcical figure of Altaf Hussain has vanished and seems increasingly to have been forgotten. His MQM is now divided into factions with the wing led by Dr Farooq Sattar emerging as the primary party. How it will fare in a new election is not clear. Whether the splintering of the party with the PSP has had an impact in areas of Karachi and other urban centres in Sindh is also difficult to say.

The ANP has also lost many leaders to gunfire and bombs and others to its own inadequacies. It will still contend for seats in KP and there are predictions that it may once again overtake the PTI. But there are many uncertainties and questions over the increasing relegation of parties to particular areas of the country and the lack of a powerful entity that is able to bring the nation together.

As is the case with other phenomena, there are, of course, internal forces at work in the fall of political parties. Their own actions – or the lack of action when it comes to governance – do nothing to develop their strength or to endear them to the people. Eventually, the people are the force behind any political group. Without them, it would not exist.

But beyond internal mismanagement and incompetence, there may be other forces at work that we need to understand. These forces have indeed been active since the birth of Pakistan and have recognised that weak, powerless parties, which have been discredited in the eyes of the people as corrupt, inept and incapable, allow other powers to gain a stronger hand in how the country is run and who holds the strings within it. This tactic has succeeded for decades.

Many parties are victims of the impact of these expertly-orchestrated strategies. It seems paradoxical that any group within a country would attempt to damage the political parties that represent their own people. But the parties have too often been seen as enemies because they challenge particular centres of power. As a result, there is a school of thought held in specific circles which works towards weakening them.

We saw this effort in full swing during the Musharraf era. The PML-Q, the main ally for the dictator, was created by working to weaken the PML-N and the PPP. It is true that both parties swung back from the blows delivered to them in different ways. But the continuing reign of punches and kicks means that they are constantly locked in a struggle for survival and thus impaired in their task of offering a decent leadership to the people.

Before her tragic death in 2007, Benazir Bhutto had spoken of the hurdles placed in the way of the PPP – a party that certain elements feared both because of its perceived ideology and, perhaps, because it was led by a woman – that is deliberately hobbling it in its attempts to run a government. The consecutive fall of successive elected governments through the 1990s gives us a clear picture of the manner in which events have unfolded and how leaders have been deliberately impeded to serve the purposes of others.

Of course, it is easy to blame parties. Their leaders have a lot to answer for. The degree of corruption that exists has weakened their own ability to attain the moral upper hand or gain respect in the eyes of the people. The appointment of corrupt people to important positions on the basis of nepotism has further tarnished their image and destroyed entire institutions. This makes it easier for outside players to simply draw out plans and work towards the further destruction of the already weakened parties.

The whispers that currently an attempt is being made to create a hung parliament fall in line with this. Parties that are desperate for power are also good allies for the players who design their own games and use them to lure, tempt and persuade individuals and groups to act in specific ways.

The result, of course, is that as political parties lose popular appeal and anything resembling a high standing in the eyes of people, it becomes simpler for others to take over. Our country is already run, in effect, by groups that have no mandate from the people. Foreign policy, economic policy, internal decisions and security concerns are all handled by this group.

Sometimes, we wonder why we hold elections at all. But it is essentially the task of political parties to find a way that can enable them to haul themselves back up the steep cliff that stands before them and once again attain genuine power. For this, they need the people and the people can only be won over if the efforts made for them are genuine and enacted with a degree of commitment.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com