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THE PPP high command’s decision to replace Qaim Ali Shah was a sudden but not entirely unexpected move. Rumours of his replacement had been circulating for quite some time, and it appeared certain that the candidate to take over would be his finance minister, Murad Ali Shah.
Upon this transition, several hagiographical as well as critical accounts of Qaim Ali Shah’s political career and tenure have appeared in various newspapers.
To cut a 56-year-long story short, the veteran politician from Khairpur remained loyal to his party, the democratic process, and the Bhutto family; he was often useful in smoothing over the party’s contentious relationship with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement; and he spent his entire career free from any accusations of appropriating public resources for private gain.
The crisis of incompetence and malfeasance that is afflicting Sindh’s governance is impossible to ignore any longer.
Nonetheless, his various tenures as the province’s chief executive were highly ineffectual in resolving the region’s developmental concerns. The province continues to suffer an endemic crisis of socio-economic deprivation, which has shown no sign of subsiding.
The most problematic aspect of his legacy, however, is that he was either unable or unwilling to put an end to the rent-seeking behaviour and multifarious corrupt practices of many of those serving in his cabinet and the party in general. For these reasons, it is entirely possible that history will not remember him kindly.
The new chief minister has taken up office and immediately faces several recurring political battles. The first, and perhaps most important, is the military’s increasing role in various aspects of Sindh’s governance. Statements given by high-ranking officers have made it clear that the army wants to extend the Rangers’ policing mandate in terms of both time and jurisdiction. There is now a demand that the paramilitary force be allowed to carry out its work in other parts of the province as well.
It goes without saying that this would be almost entirely unacceptable to the party.
The expansion of the Rangers’ mandate from Islamist militancy to anti-corruption and other forms of violence is perceived as a strategy to weaken (or at least tame) both of Sindh’s major parties. Whether this is being done to provide space to other political actors or to weaken the civilian dispensation in general is debatable. What remains clear is that a prolonged fight with the military establishment ahead would require a more effective chief minister to manage the province’s affairs as well as the party’s interests.
An effective chief minister would also allow the party to concentrate on putting up a stronger fight against the PML-N, and in particular, against Nawaz Sharif over the Panama Papers revelations.
The PPP was the first to file lengthy asset concealment references against several members of the Sharif family, and it is increasingly apparent that a street fight of some sort is beckoning in the weeks ahead. What is yet to be revealed is whether the party casts its lot with Imran Khan and friends early this month or chooses a more independent course of action.
Finally, the crisis of incompetence and malfeasance that is afflicting the province’s governance is impossible to ignore any longer. In one particular piece, written a year or so ago, I had listed several structural factors that make resolving socio-economic concerns in rural Sindh particularly difficult.
These include the historical inheritance of colonialism in the shape of entrenched land inequality, and the absorption of surplus rural capital by Karachi that leads to slow rates of urbanisation in other parts of the province. The PPP’s politics — its reliance on patronage and public-sector employment — is a reflection of this structural crisis.
However, deep-seated structural impediments can be partially overcome by concerted political action. The party to its own detriment is either unable or unwilling to realise this fact. Its relationship with the provincial bureaucracy is one that has rendered the latter completely ineffective, to the point that it now acts as an extension of the party for predatory reasons.
Fixing the provincial bureaucracy, blocking rent-seeking interventions by politicians, and making the local state machinery capable of delivering, are the most urgent tasks facing the new chief minister.
Interestingly, there is some indication that he is adept at producing some results from what is otherwise a completely compromised bureaucratic apparatus.
The performance of the Sindh Revenue Authority has been a bright spot on an otherwise bleak landscape. It was successful in exceeding its revenue collection targets last year, and there are indications that it may provide the provincial government with a steady source of fiscal resources. However, translating early success achieved in one institution to a range of others will prove to be a difficult, if not an insurmountable, task.
The PPP’s historical complacence in power is a result of its hegemonic status in the province of Sindh. It faces no serious electoral threat, and thus retains its patronage network through the capture of state institutions.
Nonetheless, the most potent threat confronting it now is from a repeatedly assertive military establishment. To win a political battle against them would require not just mobilising in the defence of a democratic right to rule, but creating a plausible perception that it is finally serious about rectifying an entrenched crisis of governance.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
Twitter: @umairjav
Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2016
