Political parties in Pakistan: Roots, fruit & juice
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
Conceived as a populist left-wing political party to challenge the Ayub Khan dictatorship (1958-69), the PPP soon grew into becoming an inclusive platform for progressives of all shapes and sizes, hue and colour. The third intra-party faction consisted of ‘progressive’ members of the landed elite, and the fourth, the smallest faction, consisted of moderate religionists. The party contested the 1970 election on a socialist manifesto and managed to sweep the National and Provincial election in the Sindh and Punjab provinces (in West Pakistan). The breakaway and a loss to India in the 1971 Indo-Pak war forced a group of military officers to dismiss General Yahya Khan (who had replaced Ayub in 1969) and invite Bhutto to form the government(3). The party’s left-wing dominated the proceedings between 1972 and 1974, but its influence began to erode after some of its members were dismissed from the party on ‘disciplinary grounds.’ From 1974 onwards, the policy-making largely fell into the lap of the PPP’s conservative wing that gradually began to shift the party’s ideological orientation. By 1976 the party’s left-wing had all but withered away and in its manifesto for the 1977 election, the PPP downplayed the word socialism(4) and brought in an increasing number of industrialists and members of the landed elite into the party’s fold. The party swept the 1977 election. But the right-wing alliance of nine anti-PPP parties, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), refused to accept the results and accused the regime of rigging the polls. The PNA unleashed a violent protest movement in the urban centres of the country demanding the resignation of the government and the imposition of ‘Nizam-e-Mustapha’ (Sharia). Amidst the turmoil, General Ziaul Haq removed Bhutto and imposed the country’s third Martial Law (July 1977). Bhutto was executed through a sham trial in 1979. During the military regime, the PPP’s radical left-wing revived itself with the support and urging of Bhutto’s widow, Begum Nusrat Bhutto(5). In 1981 the PPP formed a 10-party anti-Zia alliance, the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), and was in the forefront of all the major protest movements that took place against the Zia dictatorship. Hundreds of party workers were arrested, flogged, tortured or simply vanished. But just when Zia had thought that he had broken the party’s back, its new leader, 32-year-old Benazir (daughter of Z A. Bhutto), returned from exile in 1986. She directly challenged the Zia regime by holding huge rallies in Lahore and Karachi. She also dismissed a number of her father’s old contemporaries from the party and then reinserted the word socialism in the party manifesto. After Zia’s controversial death in August 1988, Benazir led the PPP to win the 1988 election. She led the party to two election victories (1988 and 1993), but both times her government was dismissed as a consequence of dizzying power games between the PPP, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and the establishment-backed presidents, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and Farooq Ahmed Laghari(6). Benazir went into exile and led the party from abroad during the Parvez Musharraf military regime that took over power in October 1999. The PPP emerged as the second largest party in the 2002 election. In 2007 Benazir returned to Pakistan and unfolded the PPP’s new ideological orientation, describing the party to be a democratic left-liberal entity that would reconcile its differences with other democratic forces, work to end the military’s intervention in politics and rid Pakistan of religious extremism and terrorism(7). In December 2007 she was assassinated by members of Pakistan’s most extreme militant Islamist outfit, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), soon after she had given a speech at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi. Her husband Asif Ali Zardari took over the leadership of the party and led it to win the February 2008 general election. He formed a collation government with two other parties, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The National Assembly elected PPP’s Yusuf Raza Gilani as prime minister and Zardari was elected as the country’s new president. ____________________ Electoral History (National Assembly)(8)
• 1977 Election Seats won: 155 (out of 200 NA Seats) The election was declared null and void by the military regime that toppled the government and imposed Martial Law. • 1988 Election Seats won: 93 (out of 204 NA seats)
Formed government. • 1990 Election Seats won: 44 (out of 206 NA seats) • 1993 Election Seats won: 86 (out of 202 NA seats)
Formed Government. • 1997 Election Seats won: 18 (out of 204 NA seats) • 2002 Election Seats won: 64 (out of 271 NA seats) • 2008 Election Seats won: 95 (out of 268 NA seats)
Formed government. Areas of electoral influence: Sindh; South Punjab; Parts of KP and Balochistan.
_______________________ Ideological Evolution
Socialist/Populist (1967-74); Centrist/Populist (1974-77); Socialist (1978-86); Social Democrat (1988-93); Centre-left (1993-2002); Liberal-Left (2002- ). Views on religion:
Quasi-Secular, but has always been flexible enough to accommodate certain aspects of Political Islam, Sufi Islam(9) and Modernist Reformist Islam(10). Youth Wings: Peoples Students Federation (PSF) – formed in 1972;
Peoples Youth Organization (PYO) – formed in 1984. Party website: Pakistan Peoples Party
Peoples Youth Organization
2013 election manifesto
____________________________ Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) The factions that came together to form the 1985 version of PML had historical links with two PML groups that had emerged in 1962 during the Ayub Khan dictatorship (Council and Convention). PML-Convention was pro-Ayub whereas PML-Council oopposed him. Both the Convention and Council Leagues were mostly made up of members who had been active in Pakistan’s first ruling party, the Muslim League that in turn was an extension of the All India Muslim League (AIML). AIML was the leading Muslim party in undivided India during the ‘Pakistan Movement’. Though formed in 1906 to represent the economic, political and social interests of India’s Muslims, the AIML shot to prominence from the 1930s onwards. It claimed to be the sole representative of the Muslims of India, a claim that was bitterly disputed by the Muslim leaders of the Indian National Congress as well as by fundamentalist Islamic parties such as the Majlis-e-Ahrar, Jamiat Ulema Islam Hind and the Jamat-e-Islami(12). AIML simply became the Muslim League after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. And even though (or since) it also became the new country’s first ruling party, it was soon riddled by serious infighting and power games, especially after Jinnah’s death in 1948. During the 1970 general election, three prominent ML factions contested the historic polls: Convention, Council and Qayyum League (ML-Q). All the three factions were routed by the PPP, National Awami Part (NAP) and the Bengali nationalist party, the Awami League in the election, even though the Qayyum League did comparatively well in the former NWFP. The Q League merged with the PPP(13) after the later came into power in 1972. In 1973 the Convention and Council Leagues merged to become Functional Muslim League. The party became part of the nine-party anti-PPP electoral alliance, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) for the 1977 election. In 1985 Zia urged the head of the Functional League, Pir Pagaro, to turn the party into a united front by merging all PML factions. This was also when for the first time the PML shifted radically towards adopting overt religious symbolism and rhetoric. In the 1988 election the PML became an important part of the right-wing nine-party alliance the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad (IJI). The alliance was narrowly defeated by the PPP. In 1993 the PML split again when Mian Nawaz Sharif broke away to form the PML-Nawaz (PML-N). PML-N became the largest faction and the most popular. It came into power (as IJI) in 1990 and then (as PML-N) after the 1997 election. Between 1990 and 1997, PML-N emphasised on being a quasi-Islamic and pro-business party. However, after its government was toppled in 1999 by General Parvez Musharraf, PML-N (throughout the 2000s) revived itself as a staunchly pro-democracy party. It remains to be the largest PML faction with the most electoral appeal compared to other existing PML factions, rapidly evolving in the last decade to become a prominent democratic force in the country – especially in the Punjab and in the Hindko-speaking areas of KP. Election pundits and a number of popularity polls have put PML-N in the front to become the majority party after this year’s May 11 election(14).
_______________________ Electoral history (National Assembly)(15) • 1988 Election Seats won: 54 (out of 204 NA seats) (16) • 1990 Election Seats won: 105 (out of 206 NA seats) (17)
Formed government. • 1993 Election Seats won: 73 (out of 202 NA seats) • 1997 Election Seats won: 135 (out of 204 NA seats) • 2002 Election Seats won: 15 (out of 271 NA seats) • 2008 Election Seats won: 72 (out of 268 NA seats) Areas of electoral influence: Punjab; parts of South Punjab; Hindko-speaking areas of KP.
_____________________ Ideological evolution:
Quasi-Islamic/Conservative (1988-93); Quasi-Islamic/Conservative/Populist (1993-2000); Centre-Right/Populist (2002 - ). Views on religion:
Politically moderate but socially conservative, even though recently some liberal leaders have been allowed to come to the front. Over the years the party is trying to shed its old ‘Ziaist’/Islamic image and cultivate a more moderate and democratic appeal, even though in the last five years it has been accused by opponents of being vague and uncommitted in its stand against religious extremism and terrorism in Pakistan. Youth Wing: Muslim Students Federation-Nawaz (MSF-N) formed: 1993; Muslim Youth Organization (MYO) formed: 2009. Party Websites: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz
Muslim Students Federation
2013 Election Manifesto
______________________________ Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf PTI was formed by former Pakistan cricket captain, Imran Khan, in 1996. The formation of the party was the political expression of the spiritual transformation Khan had been going through ever since the death of his mother (from cancer) and the Pakistan cricket team’s victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup (under his captaincy). Throughout his cricketing career (1971-92), Khan had opted for a flamboyant and secular lifestyle and showed little interest in politics. His religious transformation also coincided with him coming under the wings of former ISI Chief and close ally of Ziaul Haq, General Hamid Gul. After Gul was eased out from the ISI by the first Benazir Bhutto government (1988-90), he had formed a party called Tehreek-e-Ittihad and was trying to rope in Khan to join the party(19). However, not only did Khan moved to form his own party, he married Jamima Goldsmith, a British national. The marriage repulsed Gul’s advances to co-opt Khan into his party and Khan took his own party into the 1997 election to challenge the supremacy of the country’s two main parties, the PPP and PML-N. The party faced a resounding defeat. In 1999 when General Parvez Musrraf toppled the Nawaz Sharif government in a military coup, Khan hailed the decision. PTI managed to win just one National Assembly seat in the 2002 election, but during this period Khan took back his support for Musharraf when the General decided to join the US ‘War on Terror.’ He also became close to the Jamat-i-Islami and echoed the Jamat’s anti-war mantra, emphasising that the conflict was not Pakistan’s responsibility. But whereas his party remained to be nothing more than a one-man crusade, he did manage to organise an effective youth-wing of the party, the Insaf Students Federation (ISF). PTI boycotted the 2008 election and was merely drifting as a ‘more good looking B Team of the Jamat-e-Islami,(20)’ when in late 2011, Khan surprised the media and other parties by managing to hold a massive rally in Lahore. Khan’s constant presence on Urdu TV channels, the groundwork done by ISF, and the prominent role of PTI activists in the social media greatly helped PTI experience a sudden groundswell. Khan has mixed leftist symbolism with right-wing rhetoric to attack the PPP and PML-N and claims that his party is now in a position to actually sweep the 2013 election.
____________________ Electoral History (National Assembly) • 1997 Election Seats won: None • 2002 Election Seats won: 1 (out of 271 NA seats) • 2008 Election Boycott
Areas of electoral influence (possible): Central and northern Punjab; KP. _________________ Ideological evolution:
Right-wing (1996-2002); Centre-Right (2002-2008); Centre-Right/Populist (2010 - ). Views on Religion
Moderate, even though PTI has come under constant criticism for playing the role of an ‘apologist’ for the Taliban. Nevertheless, PTI has been actively criticising Sunni sectarian organisations for attacks on the Shia community. Khan continues to clarify that his party’s relationship with religion is like that of Jinnah’s and Iqbal’s. He usually uses Islamic symbolism in his speeches. Most of his critics label PTI as a right-wing party whereas some have gone on to suggest that Khan is using religion like the ‘socialist’ Z A. Bhutto did in the 1970s. Youth Wing: Insaf Students Federation (ISF) Party website: Pakistan Thereek-e-Insaaf
Insaaf Students Federation
2013 Election Manifesto
_______________________ Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) MQM was formed as Mohajir Qaumi Movement in 1984 by Altaf Hussain and Azeem Ahmed Tariq as a party representing the political and economic interests of Sindh’s Mohajir (Urdu-speaking) population. Altaf and Azeem were students at the Karachi University in 1978 where they had first formed the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Federation (APMSO). The much overlooked reason behind the APMSO’s evolution into giving birth to the MQM is an economic one. According to famous Sindhi scholar, Ibrahim Joyo, ‘Punjabi economic hegemony’ increased immensely in Sindh during the dictatorship of Ziaul Haq(22). This situation had a negative impact on Karachi’s leading business communities (Memons, Gujaratis and other non-Punjabi business outfits). In such a situation these communities formed the Maha Sindh (MS) — an organisation set up to protect the interests of Karachi’s Memon, Gujarati and Mohajir businessmen and traders. MS then encouraged and financed the formation of a ‘street-strong’ Karachi-based party. This party arrived in the shape of the MQM. The MQM has continued to win the most seats in Karachi across all elections since 1988 – despite the fact that due to some of its aggression against the media and opponents in Karachi, the state conducted at least three concentrated armed operations against it in the 1990s. After it changed its name to Muttahida Qaumi Movement (in 1998), the MQM began to shed off its ethnic skin. The MQM supported the Musharraf dictatorship (1999-2008) and took this opportunity to regenerate and reorganize itself after the chaos of the 1990s. In 2008 it became a coalition partner of the PPP-led regime. Like the PPP and ANP, the MQM has come under direct attack from extremist organizations.
______________ Electoral History (National Assembly) • 1988 Election Seats won: 12
Became part of PPP-led government. Quit in 1990. • 1990 Election Seats won: 15
Became part of PML/IJI-led government. Quit in 1992. • 1993 Election Boycotted NA Election. • 1997 Election Seats won: 12
Became part of PML-N led government. Quit in 1998. • 2002 Election Seats won: 13
Became part of the PML-Q led government. • 2008 Election Seats won: 19
Became part of PPP-led government. Areas of electoral influence: Karachi; Hyderabad (Sindh). ___________________ Ideological evolution
Centre-left (1984-88); Centrist (1990-2002); Liberal (2002 - ). Views on religion
Secular. Overtly opposed to radical Islamic groups and thought. Sometimes adopts Sindh’s traditional Sufi Islamic symbolism. Youth Wing: All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organization (APMSO) Party Websites: MQM
APMSO
2013 Election Manifesto
_______________________________ The roots of the ANP lie in the National Awami Party (NAP). NAP was formed in 1957 by leftist Pushtun, Sindhi, Baloch and Bengali nationalists and Marxist Punjabi and Mohajir elements. In the 1960s NAP was the country’s largest leftist party until the arrival of the PPP in 1967. NAP mainly comprised of Pushtun and Baloch nationalist leadership. It won a majority of seats in the former NWFP and Balochistan in the 1970 election and formed coalition governments in these provinces. In 1973 the PPP/Z A. Bhutto regime dismissed the NAP regime in Balochistan, accusing it of instigating a separatist movement in Balochistan. The NAP-led coalition government in the NWFP resigned in protest. In 1975 the Bhutto regime got the Supreme Court to ban NAP after a PPP Minister was assassinated in Peshawar(24). NAP leaders who were released from jail after the Bhutto regime was toppled by General Zia in 1977, formed a new party, the National Democratic Party (NDP). However, the NDP split on the question of joining the PPP-led anti-Zia alliance, MRD. In 1986, Baloch, Sindhi and Pushtun leaders revived NAP, this time calling it the Awami National Party. However, after Zia’s death in 1988, ANP’s Sindhi and Baloch leaders broke away to form their own parties and ANP became an exclusive Pushtun nationalist party. But its electoral fortunes have fluctuated. After witnessing a high in this respect in the 1990s, ANP lost ground and orientation in the early 2000s. However, it got back on its feet again during the 2008 election and delivered its best results in an election thus far. The 2008 election saw ANP’s electoral fortunes rise dramatically in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). What’s more, for the first time it managed to also win a couple of Provincial Assembly seats in Karachi. Nevertheless, its government in the KP was constantly challenged by extremist Islamist groups that have assassinated a number of ANP leaders.
ANP (along with the MQM and PPP) is under direct threat from these groups. ___________________ Electoral History (National Assembly)(25) • 1988 Election Seats won: 2 • 1990 Election Seats won: 6 Joined the PML/IJI led government • 1993 Election Seats won: 3 • 1997 Election Seats won: 9 Became part of the PML-N government. Quit in 1998. • 2002 Election Seats won: None • 2008 Election Seats won: 10 Became part of the PPP-led government. Areas of electoral influence: KP; and parts of Balochistan and Karachi. _______________________________ Juice Views on religion
Secular/Humanist. Overtly opposed to radical Islamic groups and thought. Youth wing: Pushtun Students Federation Party Websites: ANP
Pushtun Students Federation
2013 Election Manifesto
_________________________ JUI-F’s roots lie in Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), a conservative Sunni (Deobandi) party in India. JUH was opposed to Jinnah’s All India Muslim League and (along with two other Islamic parties, the Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and Majlis-e-Ahrar), accused the Muslim League of being a secular organisation of ‘misguided Muslims.’ During the all-important election of 1945 in the Punjab in which the Muslim League needed to win big, Jinnah gave the green light to sponsor the creation of a pro-Muslim League religious party(26) that could divide the religious vote of the JUH and the Ahrar. Thus emerged the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) which, at the time, had leadership from both Deobandi as well as the Sunni Barelvi Muslm communities. However, after Pakistan’s creation in 1947, the Barelvi leadership of the party formed its own party and the JUI became a strictly Deobandi Sunni Muslim outfit. JUI was strongly opposed to the fundamentalist JI and during the 1970 election it became the only religious party that did not oppose the PPP and NAP’s socialist programs. In fact, JUI showed great interest in forming an electoral alliance with the PPP , but the PPP(27) politely declined. After the election the JUI formed coalition governments in Balochistan and NWFP with the secular and socialist NAP. The JUI turned against the Bhutto regime when it dismissed the NAP-led provincial government in 1973. In 1977, JUI became a leading member of the nine-party anti-PPP alliance, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). After the Bhutto regime was toppled by General Ziaul Haq in July 1977, JUI exited from the PNA when some of its parties, especially the JI, decided to join the Zia regime. In 1981 JUI joined the PPP-led anti-Zia alliance, the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). In the mid-1980s, at the height of Zia’s ‘Islamization’, some members of the JUI and its student-wing (the Jamiat Taleba Islam), broke away to form the radical Sunni sectarian organization, the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). JUI had largely been a moderate Islamic party, but from the late 1980s onwards it became increasingly conservative, especially when it took control of the seminaries that indoctrinated religious students who rose up to become the Taliban. JUI supported the Musharraf dictatorship and became part of a large religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) that swept the 2002 election in NWFP and Balochistan.
The MMA collapsed just before the 2008 election and the JUI contested the election with a few minor religious parties. ___________________ Electoral History (National Assembly) • 1970 Election
Seats won: 7
Formed coalition governments with NAP in NWFP and Balochistan. • 1977 Election
Seats won (As part of Pakistan National Alliance): 36 • 1988 Election
Seats won: 7 • 1990 Election
Seats won: 6 • 1993 Election
Seats won: 4
Became part of PPP-led coalition government • 1997 Election
Seats won: 2 • 2002 Election
Seats won (As part of Muttahida Majlis Amal): 63
Formed governments in NWFP and Balochistan. • 2008 Election
Seats won: 6
Became part of PPP-led coalition government. Quit in 2011. Areas of Electoral Influence: KP (rural/semi-rural areas); Balochistan (Rural/semi-rural). __________________ Ideological Orientation
Moderate/Progressive Islamic (1947-73); Democratic-Islamic (1978-88); Islamic (1990-96); Fundamentalist (1999-2008); Islamic (2010 - ). Views on religion
Conservative and at times fundamentalist, but pro-democracy. Youth Wing: Jamiat Taleba Islam (JTI) Party website: JUI-F
2013 Election Manifesto
_____________________ Formed in 1941 by Islamic scholar Abul Ala Maududi as a modern fundamentalist Islamic party. JI was staunchly opposed to Jinnah’s Muslim nationalism, suggesting that nationalism was a European concept that had no place in Islam. Another problem Maududi had with Pakistan was that he considered the new country to be in a state of jahiliyat(28) – Arab word meaning ‘ignorance’ and describing the time in Mecca before the arrival of Islam. Nevertheless, the party moved to the newly created Pakistan in 1947 and made its first dramatic entry into the new country’s politics by joining the Majlis-e-Ahrar in an anti-Ahmadi movement in Lahore in 1953. Maududi was arrested for inciting religious hatred and rioting and sentenced to death. The sentence was soon overturned. Lacking electoral pull, the JI recruited educated urbanites into its fold in an attempt to infiltrate the bureaucracy and the vernacular Urdu print media(29). JI was banned in 1963 by the Ayub dictatorship when it vehemently opposed the regime’s overtly secular policies and liberal interpretation of Islam. The ban was soon lifted. During the 1970 election, JI aggressively ran a vigorous campaign against leftist parties (particularly the PPP), and in its manifesto claimed that voting for socialist party was against the teachings of Islam. The campaign came to a naught when the JI was routed in the 1970 election. In 1974 it again led the agitation against the Ahmadi community. This time it was successful in getting the community relegated as a non-Muslim minority. In 1977 the party headed a nine-party election alliance against the PPP regime. The alliance was routed, but it refused to accept the election result. It then began a protest campaign on the streets that led to the imposition of Pakistan's third Martial Law. The JI joined the reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship and was one of the first parties to organise jihadists against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. During the 1988 election, JI joined the nine-party right-wing alliance, the Islami Jamhoori Ittihad (IJI). It quit the alliance after the 1990 election and went solo during the 1993 election but faced defeat. It boycotted the 1997 election and then went on to hail the military coup against the second Nawaz Sharif/PML-N regime. In 2002 it became part of the right-wing religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). The alliance fell apart before the 2008 election.
The JI boycotted the 2008 election. ____________________ Electoral History (National Assembly) • 1970 Election
Seats won: 4 • 1977 Election
Seats won (As part of Pakistan National Alliance): 36 • 1988 Election
Seats won (as part of Islami Jamhoori Ittihad) 56 • 1990 Election
Seats won: (as part of Islami Jamhoori Ittihad 106
Became part of the PML-led government. Quit in 1992. • 1993 Election
Seats won: 3 • 1997 Election
Boycotted. • 2002 Election
Seats won (As part of Muttahida Majlis Amal): 63
Formed governments in NWFP and Balochistan. • 2008 Election
Boycott Areas of Electoral Influence: Parts of Karachi (Sindh); Parts of KP.
______________________ Ideological Orientation
Fundamentalist (1947 - ). Views on religion
Fundamentalist, even though the party has often expressed it through intellectual means and propaganda. Youth Wings: Islami Jamiat Taleba (formed: 1948); Shabab-e-Milli (formed: 1994); Pasban (but broke away from JI in 1994). Party websites: Jamat-i-Islami
Islami Jamiat Taleba
2013 Election Manifesto
______________________ The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Seats won: 81 (out of 138 National Assembly Seats)
Formed government