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MANY obituaries have been written about the PPP post-2013 elections but the party defies simplistic epitaphs. The criticisms are valid: corruption, governance failure, lack of internal democracy, nepotism, alienation of stalwarts, induction of sycophants and the bitterness of jiyalas.
But these charges aren’t new. We now hear that Asif Zardari betrayed Benazir Bhutto’s PPP, earlier we heard that Benazir betrayed Z.A. Bhutto’s PPP; earlier still, it was said that ZAB himself betrayed the party’s original conception. Betrayal is a recurring theme in ideological politics globally.
But it’s no coincidence that the moment that political commentators predict it will be nearly impossible for the PPP to make a comeback is the same moment analysts point out that an overt military coup is no longer probable. Putting both on the same timeline would show that the party is voted into political power in the wake of military regimes, almost like the repository of the army’s anti-incumbency vote.
The PPP was formed during Ayub Khan’s regime, first voted into power after Yahya Khan’s military rule, re-elected after Gen Zia’s repressive 11-year regime, and most recently after Gen Musharraf’s nine-year rule. The exception was BB’s second tenure but there too her previous dismissal was seen as victimisation by the army-backed establishment.
Where is the PPP headed? Purgatory?
The PPP’s crafting of institutional paralysis and collapse of governance in Sindh over the past seven years is easily observable. In a contradiction, the party simultaneously pushed forward the project of democracy at the national level. It resolved the crisis of federalism with the unanimously passed 18th Amendment, a lingering set of issues that had plagued Pakistan since the Constituent Assembly and was the reason why we didn’t have a constitution for almost a decade after independence.
A sitting president signed away his powers of dismissing an elected government, a structural corrective that brought about a parliamentary democracy instead of the distorted semi-presidential system that had paved the way for coups. For the first time, the country saw consensus on the vote of confidence for a prime minister and for the Senate chairman, the country’s first democratic transition and completion of the presidential tenure. A serving prime minister was summoned and appeared before the Supreme Court. The muscle-flexing by institutions created a productive chaos for settling older contests over the separation of powers. These are changes in Pakistan’s genetic code with long-term implications, not even including the pro-women laws, the NFC, etc.
If people turn to the PPP to drive out military regimes, by delivering that result and lessening the future coups’ probability, did the PPP make itself redundant? If talk of sacrifices for democracy is now passé, that is because it is seen as a requirement of the past. The litmus test was the democratic transition, but that success was a game-changer for PPP because it lost its victim status, and completing the term reset benchmarks and raised the bar. The focus has shifted to how the term was completed and its performance in the duration. More secure about our democratic perpetuity now, the politics of reconciliation with both the army and the PML-N that made term completion possible has agitated the PPP voter, because it is now seen as having compromised itself in the process.
It is not only PPP’s audacious levels of corruption or that it didn’t deliver ‘roti, kapra, makaan’. It has also lost its ability to use the anti-establishment card. It took the soft approach on the Musharraf trial, wouldn’t level with the public on the BB murder probe and didn’t even push through the one populist steroid in its arsenal — the retrial of ZAB to declare it a judicial murder. It rolled back on its public commitment to bring the security apparatus under civilian control. As leader of opposition, the PPP supported the formation of military courts and worse, the apex committees.
Coming to Sindh, the average PPP voters stood in support for democracy because they thought it would immediately better their lives. It didn’t. They understood the establishment’s support of the traditional elite and opposed that nexus, only to find that the PPP co-opted the same elite and their tactics. Five years after devolution, blame for Sindh’s conditions can no longer be shifted to Punjab or the military establishment. Every department and tier of government is a mess and needs a purge. Is that where the PPP’s headed? Purgatory?
People ask what future vision the party has to offer but the leadership is out of sync with changes in the country. As the political spectrum has shifted to the right, the strife between other parties seems internecine. The PPP could rebuild on the fundamentals. Or it could sit back and pray for a coup.
The writer is a researcher and consultant in the social sector.
Twitter: @Nazish_Brohi
Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2015
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