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AS we approach the elections, Pakistani politics increasingly resemble a kaleidoscope: you rotate the tube, and flick! — the bits of glass tumble around, forming bright new patterns.
So, too, do alliances and groupings coalesce and break apart. The most unlikely bedfellows jump promiscuously from one bed to another. Loyalties are up for grabs. Every day brings news of fresh desertions. In short, the lotas, or turncoats, are on the march.
A friend recently expressed doubts that elections would be held on time. His reasons? Dark conspiracy theories involving the PPP and the army. I offered him a small liquid bet that there would be no postponement, and am sure of winning. I base my confidence on the fact that barely days before the assemblies complete their tenure, the MQM has jumped ship. What could be a surer indication of impending elections?
Over the years, the MQM has developed a couple of survival tactics: contest elections as an opposition party so the muck of incumbency does not stick. And once it knows which party is likely to be the major player in the next coalition, it tries to cut the best deal with the winner. Long ago, it decided that it needed to be in government to avoid the kind of rough treatment it received at the hands of both the PPP and the PML under Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s.
So here we are again: the MQM governor of Sindh keeps his job, while the MQM ministers resign. Truly the best of both worlds. The truth is that while the army and both major parties deal with the MQM, they do not trust it: there has been too much backstabbing in the past for the Karachi-based party to inspire confidence.
And this mistrust is not limited to political players alone: in a major national opinion survey published in last month’s Herald, far more respondents named the MQM for being responsible for promoting religious, ethnic and sectarian violence than any other party. And this is despite the fact that the MQM, for all its many faults, is an entirely secular party.
This survey contains a host of useful data. For instance, despite five years of poor governance and allegations of massive corruption, the PPP is still neck and neck with the PML-N on a wide range of issues from the economy to foreign affairs. Imran Khan’s PTI comes in at a respectable third.
Despite these findings for specific issues, PTI has led in certain other polls for overall popularity. While this might seem like good news for Imran Khan’s many adoring fans, they need to read between the numbers: the bulk of his support continues to be in urban centres, especially in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. How this concentrated support translates into seats remains to be seen. But in our first-past-the-post system, having your entire vote bank in towns and cities is like having all your eggs in one basket.
As of now, the most probable outcome of the elections is a split mandate with Nawaz Sharif winning the largest chunk of seats, and the PPP a fairly close second. Unless PML-N can put together a majority consisting of other parties and independents, it will have to reach out to the MQM and/or PTI. Neither is a very desirable option for Nawaz Sharif, given the bitter accusations that have flowed between them over the years.
But both smaller parties are hungry for power, and will probably swallow their misgivings: Pakistani politicians are not known to stick to principles when offered a seat at the high table. Nevertheless, it is not easy to see Imran Khan playing second fiddle to Nawaz Sharif, or anybody else for that matter.
Having fulminated from the sidelines for years, Imran Khan is about to learn the price of power. The ‘electables’ who gravitated to him when it seemed he was indeed riding the crest of a tsunami last year won’t hang on if he refuses to cut deals to join a coalition.
In Pakistan, once the small fry know who’s top dog, they tend to swarm in that direction. So there won’t be a shortage of parties and independents willing to hitch their wagons to the winner’s star. But this will also raise the possibility of blackmail: witness the many compromises the ruling Congress Party has had to make with their coalition partners in India.
We have already seen a spate of desertions from the PPP to the PML-N. This trend can be expected to accelerate as the elections near, and speaks volumes for the confidence these lotas place in their party’s chances. Many jiyalas are disillusioned by the compromises the PPP has made these last five years.
Indeed, while the party has managed to complete its tenure — a minor political miracle in itself — the price has been very high. It has bowed before every power centre even when it didn’t have to. If anything, its tenure has been marked by a singular lack of spine. For Zardari, clinging on to power has been the end-all and be-all of his political strategy. Actually ‘power’ is a misnomer here as it has hardly been used by this government.
Whether facing the army, the judiciary, the terrorists, the opposition or the media, Zardari has ducked and weaved, but never counter-punched. It is true that he was dealt a rotten hand, and has had to contend with many crises, some of them of his own making. But when push has come to shove, almost invariably, Zardari has backed off.
Government spokesmen are already claiming credit for setting a record and completing five years in office. In this, Nawaz Sharif has played a responsible part by not seizing on the government’s weakness and destabilising it. He has had several opportunities to do so, but has shown considerable maturity by refusing to go for short-term gains at the expense of the system.
Over the last five years, many readers have complained that democracy has brought the country nothing but grief, and that the next elections, too, would see the same rotten lot being returned to parliament. I beg to disagree. The fact that election rules have been tightened, and there is greater judicial and media scrutiny, means that the system will be strengthened and a better class of politicians elected.
In any case, what we have is better than any dictatorship.
The writer is the author of Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West.
