After Benazir
Orphaned and ousted
Having been routed in Punjab, efforts to resuscitate the PPP hinge on making it a ‘party of resistance’ once again
On Dec 22, 2015, as interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan sanctioned a 60-day extension to the Rangers’ special policing powers in Sindh, he might have unwittingly handed the PPP an opportunity that they had been searching for since long: to become “a party of resistance” in Punjab once again.
“How can you turn the party of resistance into a party of reconciliation?” asks a veteran PPP activist from Lahore. “Even Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari told us that the PPP is a party of resistance and not of reconciliation. But we often wonder, when will he turn his guns at the Sharifs or the others?”
The insinuation is clear: the PPP in Punjab is leaderless, directionless and impotent. Without relevance in Punjab, it is struggling to exert its stature in national politics too.
Eight years since her assassination, the PPP finds itself in a political quagmire: how does the party reinvent and mould itself in Benazir’s image again?
“Co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari’s policy of reconciliation towards the ruling PML-N for such a long period of time has damaged us dearly,” asserts the veteran activist. “Imran Khan exploited our position and labelled the PPP as PML-N’s ‘B Team’ and a ‘friendly opposition’.”
That label has stuck, as have unfavourable perceptions about the party’s leadership and corruption allegations over many other leaders. The party has neither been able to provide stiff competition to the PML-N nor has it withstood the tsunami of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). It is neither in government nor has it been an effective opposition.
This state of affairs hasn’t been a sudden revelation, of course.
Ever since the 2008 elections, the party has been on a sharp decline in Punjab. In terms of seats in the Punjab Assembly, the PPP ranks fourth with seven seats, behind the PML-N (305 seats), PTI (26 seats) and even PML-Q (nine seats). The party’s abysmal performance in the 2013 general and provincial elections as well this year’s local body polls in Punjab only reflect how deep the rot has set in.
Not long ago, the PPP used to receive good sums in application fees from prospective party ticket aspirants. Not this time though, as the party could not field its candidates on a number of seats for chairmen. Most of the old guards preferred to contest independently instead because they fancied their chances as independent candidates.
In Lahore alone, of the total 274 seats of chairmen, the PPP fielded 80 and managed to secure one city constituency. This shows where the party of the Bhuttos now stands in Lahore, a city that was once its citadel.
To reverse the tide, there is consensus among most office-bearers from all districts of Punjab that now is the right time for the PPP to shun its policy of reconciliation towards the PML-N. And yet, while this might prove to be a necessary step, it is merely the tip of the iceberg.
State of denial
“The poor are the focus of the PPP as the middle class has never been our target,” argues a senior PPP leader from central Punjab. “As long as there are poor people in Pakistan, the PPP has a chance to make a comeback, because the working classes love the party of the Bhuttos and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s slogan of roti, kapra, makaan still resonates with them.”
Given the senior leader’s assurances, it is surprising that the PPP failed to get votes from areas inhabited by the poor in Lahore during the 2013 elections, by-polls and local body elections.
Residents of the narrow alleys of Lahore’s walled city, for example, had become diehard PPP supporters because the party had brought natural gas connections to their homes when Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1988. Former PPP secretary-general Jehangir Badr had won from the old city too. And yet, the PPP has lost its pull and much ground in such areas of Lahore and other parts of Punjab.
But while this reality persists, some PPP leaders and workers are not ready to believe that the PPP was ‘wiped out’ from Punjab in the 2013 elections and subsequently hit further lows in local body elections.
“We have not been routed from Punjab; we are very much here,” claims one leader. “The 2013 elections were not fair. Had they been transparent, the PPP would have bagged a good number of seats from here.”
His viewpoint was echoed by PPP Punjab President Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo: “It was Asif Ali Zardari who had first declared that the 2013 elections were manipulated by the returning officers (ROs).”
While the PPP leadership in Punjab makes the 2013 elections loss seem like a momentary blip, what happened thereafter is particularly instructive: a good number of PPP stalwarts from different districts of Punjab bid farewell to the party of the Bhuttos, most of them joining the PTI. Prominent among those who left are Shah Mahmood Qureshi (Multan), Sardar Asif Ahmed Ali (Kasur), Jamshad Dasti (Muzaffarghar) and Ijaz Virk (Faisalabad).
All those who left cited reservations on Zardari’s policies, while those who joined the PTI accused the PPP of having become apologists for the PML-N. Not many saw a future for themselves in the PPP because of its dwindling popularity in the province.
And while the PPP paid lip service to the cause of the working classes, the PTI was focusing its efforts at a large urban middle class, politicising their youth and bringing them into the electoral mainstream. While the PTI displayed a new plan to break the PML-N’s domination, the PPP had few answers.
“One of the reasons why the PPP conceded space to the PTI in Punjab is that it did not want to help those forces to derail democracy,” claims Wattoo. “Our reconciliation policy towards the PML-N for the sake of saving the system damaged us. But now Bilawal will announce a new programme to the people and recreate the party’s glory days.”
“The PPP will make a comeback in Punjab under Bilawal’s leadership since both the PML-N and PTI are right-wing parties. We will bag the left wing vote,” claims another staunch worker, Usman Malik, who argues that much like the Congress party in India, the PPP also has the potential to make a comeback.
“The PPP has literally been orphaned after the demise of Benazir Bhutto,” argues another leader, preferring not to talk about voters but the gaffes made by the leadership. “Zardari Sahib confined himself to the presidency for five years and there was no one else in the party that workers could turn to. During the last eight years, one can see a clear lack of vision on the part of the PPP leadership to retain its voters. There was no policy, no strategy, while on the other hand, the Sharifs capitalised on our mistakes.”
During the last eight years, one can see a clear lack of vision on the part of the PPP leadership to retain its voters. There was no policy, no strategy, while on the other hand, the Sharifs capitalised on our mistakes.
Another PPP leader says that the Sharifs have been “bullying” the PPP leadership for a long time. “But neither Zardari Sahib nor Bilawal seem to be interested in responding to them in a befitting manner. Thank God, there is someone like Imran Khan who bullies the Sharifs instead and keeps them in check,” he says.
And what of those who have left the PPP?
“Those who chased after party tickets in the past prefer to switch loyalties. Some of them may return if Bilawal becomes the father of the party, which he is not at the moment,” he says.
Beaten by biraderi?
Biraderi or clan often defines which way politics will settle in Punjab, particularly in rural areas, where all affairs, from economic to political to cultural to social, are still settled by elders of the family, biraderi and clan.
But the pull of the biraderi factor varies from constituency to constituency and is not limited to rural areas either. In the NA-122 by-polls, both candidates — Sardar Ayaz Sadiq of the PML-N and Abdul Aleem Khan of the PTI — did their best to attract biraderi votes.
Interestingly, members from Aleem’s party, such as Ijaz Chaudhry and Mian Aslam Iqbal, who also belong to the Arain biraderi of Ayaz Sadiq, made concerted efforts to woo the Arain biraderi to vote for the PTI’s candidate.
On the other hand, there also exists an impression in Lahore that the Kashmiri biraderi votes for the Sharifs. In fact, as the Sharif brothers landed in Pakistan to contest the 2008 elections, fighting both time and retired General Pervez Musharraf, they adopted a strategy of dividing the biraderi vote across villages, towns and cities in Punjab.
Sharif’s rivals, the PML-Q, had put up candidates from various biraderis, and so,the Sharifs selected candidate from within the same clan to represent them. By cutting the biraderi vote in this manner, the Sharifs avoided being hit by biraderi blocs voting en-masse for their rivals.
But PPP leaders insist that the biraderi factor holds little sway when it comes to voting for the PPP.
“The biraderi factor cannot be ruled out in some cases, but the PPP has always gotten votes from the people because of its ideology and not because of clan associations. Past trends in elections also vindicate our stance,” argues Wattoo.
Biraderi also defines local government elections, because in rural settlements in particular, issues of courts and the police station can be better resolved by members of the same clan. Some PPP leaders argue therefore that the party could not make a comeback in local body polls or get candidates for elections since citizens usually prefer candidates of the party in rule, since they can use their influence and connections to have constituents’ thana-kachehri issues resolved quicker.
“Even the PTI, which claims to be the second biggest political force in the province, was routed in local body polls because of this factor,” contends a PPP leader.
The past is another party
The PPP’s showing in local government elections was dismal indeed but party loyalists are of the view that the damage has already been done and now is the time to do a repair job. Most are pinning their hopes on Bilawal; many party workers and some leaders have already encouraged him to distance himself from those responsible for the plight the party finds itself in today.
Those alluded to by veteran and loyal workers are Bilawal’s father, Asif Ali Zardari, and a bunch of men around him who called the shots when the party was in power between 2008 and 2013.
While the PPP paid lip service to the cause of the working classes, the PTI was focusing its efforts at a large urban middle class, politicising their youth and bringing them into the electoral mainstream. While the PTI displayed a new plan to break the PML-N’s domination, the PPP had few answers.
“The party leadership must thoroughly examine its mistakes and learn from them. It must evolve an accountability system within the party and show the door or partially distance itself from those who earned a bad name for it,” says activist Usman Malik.
During his last visit to Lahore earlier this year, Bilawal had agreed to form an accountability commission in the party on the demand of a number of workers. But this commission has yet to see the light of the day. A number of PPP bigwigs have been facing corruption allegations for several years, with some in the media labelling these characters as “synonymous to corruption.”
“We may not recover from this tag in future elections, and therefore, it is high time for the party leadership to declare a ‘crusade’ against corruption and corrupt elements within. We need to get rid of them if the party wants to bag votes from Punjab again,” contends a leader from south Punjab.
His argument is that the PPP lost the 2013 general elections primarily on the perception of being a ‘corrupt party’ and not because of power load-shedding.
Meanwhile, the PPP’s student wing, the People’s Student Federation (PSF), lies dormant. Till the 1990s, the PSF was quite active in colleges and universities across Punjab, and churned out populist leaders such as Jehangir Badr. The state of other wings, such as women, labour and lawyers, is not different from that of the PSF either.
Rana Sultan, senior vice-president of the People’s Youth Organisation (PYO) pledges, however, that Bilawal’s “soldiers” will ensure that the youth wing is active once again. “The youth wing will be resurrected under the leadership of Bilawal,” assures Sultan.
But with great expectations also comes great responsibility. Some office-bearers and workers place the responsibility of the defeat in local government polls squarely on the shoulders of Bilawal.
“While PTI chief Imran Khan and the PML-N leadership were active in running the campaigns of their candidates, our leader was shying away from visiting Punjab. He did not even bother to hold a video conference to bolster the candidates’ campaigns,” says a party office-bearer, who wished not to be named.
“The party will repeat the same performance in the 2018 elections if it remains leaderless in Punjab. If Bilawal Sahib is keen to revive the party, he should better be among his workers and back his candidates. This humiliating defeat in local body elections in Punjab should be enough for him to acknowledge that a major rethink of party policies is needed here,” he adds.
But while such notes of caution and pragmatism provide a dose of reality, Bilwal’s personality has been inspiring a feel-good factor and much confidence, at the very least, in terms of rhetoric, but at most, to bring disgruntled workers back into the fold.
Sajida Mir is a senior party leader who joined the disgruntled group of Nahid Khan and Safdar Abbasi sometimes ago having felt forsaken by the top leadership. But she is pinning all hopes on young Bilawal.
“If today, Bilawal announces running party affairs on his own, without the influence of his father, all estranged workers and party factions will love to work under him, like old times of Benazir Bhutto. Let me tell you, when some workers would get angry over some issue with the leadership, Mohtarma would placate them. But after her death, the gap between the workers and the leadership has widened and there is no one to listen to their grievances,” she says.
According to Mir, factors such as the bad perception of its top leadership with regards to corruption, poor governance and its complete failure to address the basic issue of energy crisis contributed to the party’s downfall in Punjab. But it wasn’t a dire situation, and things could be changed for the better.
“I want to give a message to Bilawal: embrace all workers and follow the footstep of your mother and grandfather. Say goodbye to the politics of your father and make a new team … And the party will be all set to make a comeback in the 2018 general elections. I promise,” concludes Mir.
Rein in, reign on
Power within the party is concentrated in the persons of Asif Ali Zardari, Feryal Talpur and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.Whose cult of personality shall prevail?
Whether it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or Benazir Bhutto, the PPP has operated most successfully through the force of their leader’s charismatic personality. It is in this dynamic that the success and shortcomings of today’s PPP needs to be gauged: whose cult of personality will allow the PPP to reinvent itself?
Within the party, three centres of power exist: co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Feryal Talpur, and his son, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. While the party operates today under the watchful gaze of the former two, senior leaders and veteran activists tend to argue that Bilawal’s personality needs to come to the fore if the PPP is to make a mark on national politics again, or indeed that of Sindh’s.
Much of this sentiment is derived because of distance between the party leadership and its cadre, which many claim has set in ever since Zardari assumed the reins of power. With the rise of Zardari to the top slot, the core team in the leadership changed. Out went the tried and trusted comrades of Benazir and in came the tried and trusted friends of Asif Ali Zardari.
The new entrants to the leadership positions, of course, had not risen through the ranks. Most of them had been installed there since they had weathered much in their personal capacity with the PPP co-chairman; some even had associations with Zardari dating back to Cadet College Petaro.
But since many of these leaders were not political nor they have any background or pedigree in politics, their focus was business: in effect, profit-loss calculations made by these leaders extended to the political arena, and politics too became a sphere of business. Zardari’s mantra of the “Politics of Reconciliation,” for example, was also derived from the same business mindset.
With the traditional pull of electables having become compromised (since many did not see much space for their direct involvement in matters of governance or the party proper), the distance between the party leadership and its grassroots workers grow — something that would have been anathema during Benazir’s regime.
With Zardari having to move to Islamabad to serve as the country’s president, he left matters of the party in the hands of his sister, Feryal Talpur. From Larkana, the power centre of the PPP in Sindh moved to Naudero and Nawabshah. This move created another dichotomy: would elected leaders be willing to become subservient to a leader not accessible to them?
Without doubt, Talpur exerts much power over party institutions today, sometimes to the detriment of matters of governance and those of the party proper. Many MPAs complain that projects suggested or proposed by them did not find government approval unless they were endorsed by Talpur. In many instances, including in transfers and postings, the role of the Sindh chief minister reportedly has only been one of a courtesan: waiting for Talpur’s order to proceed ahead.
With the traditional pull of electables having become compromised (since many did not see much space for their direct involvement in matters of governance or the party proper), the distance between the party leadership and its grassroots workers grow — something that would have been anathema during Benazir’s regime.
Political interactions also became stretched because Talpur was commonly unavailable to the workers; unless matters pertained to business affairs, meeting Talpur is an uphill task. As a result, grassroots activists, district coordinators and student groups have all lost out on the opportunity to interact with their leadership, and seek counsel or advice. Those willing to flatter and sing the king’s praises get time, but those who don’t, have often been sidelined.
When Bilawal first formally entered politics in October 2014, his inexperience was cited as a weakness. But after many months of active politics and training, not only does this argument fall flat, but this period has also allowed Bilawal to communicate with grassroots workers and build a political team around his person.
Bilawal’s greatest political advantage is carrying the Bhutto legacy forward, and his greatest tool towards that end is the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), which has allowed the party to stay afloat and relevant in its traditional vote bank. The BISP ushered in great transformation in common women’s lives in particular, although problems do persist in terms of distribution of money.
But the BISP gives Bilawal something to work with. Coupled with an anti-privatisation stance in urban areas, there is much scope in returning to its traditional working class vote bank. There too exists a party-wide perception that the politics of reconciliation has not been beneficial despite some limited and momentary success.
Any profit-loss calculations made by business-oriented leaders might have kept the PPP in governance, but in the sphere of politics, it created an impression of weakness and in certain cases, of the PPP’s politics being unprincipled. This is a perception that Bilawal will need to counter whenever the reins of power are transferred to him in totality.
There is also much to learn from PML-N’s experience in Punjab: longer-term projects revolving around transportation have allowed the party to present Mian Nawaz Sharif as a modern Sher Shah Suri. Over the past five years or so, PML-N’s political focus has been well-defined and its development objectives well-aligned with its focus. This has allowed the party to grow not just in Punjab but elsewhere too.
To reboot the PPP, faces with an unblemished history are needed. But what those faces will have is a reincarnation of Benazir in the form of Bilawal — a replica of his mother in mannerisms, humility and charisma. In the current stage of the PPP’s development, the cult of personality to rescue and reshape the party is that of Bilawal’s. The only question is over when power will be transferred to him in totality by his father, Asif Ali Zardari.
Four faces of PPP
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
In launching a mainstream party that was not a Muslim League, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a pioneer. But Bhutto’s PPP was also born out of a political movement, then consolidated as a political party, and finally firmly entrenched in government. On the chessboard of Pakistani politics, Bhutto was the undisputed king and his party a mechanism to enact the king’s political desires.
Having emerged during the throes of the Cold War, at a time when the Third World was highly fascinated by the advances of the Socialist bloc, Bhutto’s PPP adopted Islamic Socialism as its guiding light, in much the same vein as Moammar Gaddafi in Libya. Bhutto’s PPP was going to be left of centre, but not entirely Left.
In an interview with Feroze Ahmed, Bhutto later explained that adopting Islamic Socialism was the only way to push back the communist tide that threatened to sweep Pakistan away too. In another interview with Fariborz Atapour, Bhutto argued that only some aspects of Marxism were applied to his party’s programme, but not all. Not all industry was to be nationalised either.
This mix-and-match mode of politics inevitably defined the future directions of the party. For instance, Bhutto and his PPP were able to fracture the nascent but vibrant left-wing movement in the late 1960s by appropriating much of what the Left stood for. No shots were fired, but Bhutto’s mix of Islam, anti-India sentiment, and a socialist economic agenda proved fatal for the nascent Left.
But in 1972, soon after assuming power, Bhutto also attacked his core constituency of industrial workers in Karachi. On June 7, 1972, police opened fire at protesting workers in the SITE industrial area, many of whom were voters and workers of Bhutto’s party.
Although the incident sent ripples through the labour struggle of the time, Bhutto managed to maintain his pull through various pro-labour reforms, including land reform. It is for this reason that the PPP’s major influence in Punjab was exerted on agricultural land near the rivers Ravi and Chenab (on both sides of what is known today as Multan Road).
Bhutto lost some stalwarts from his party along the way — perhaps an extension of his egotistical style of politics — which included founding members Dr Mubashir Hasan, Meraj Mohammad Khan, and J Rahim, all of whom were from progressive backgrounds. Many of them left once Bhutto initiated a purge of leftist elements from his party.
Despite the domestic dichotomies created by amalgamation of disparate ideologies in the PPP, Bhutto was a giant in the sphere of foreign policy. He was ideologically clear on what he wanted: bilateralism, trade and a distinct identity in the comity of nations.
But after his demise, the PPP struggled to find its distinct identity for almost a decade. There was simply no cult of personality bigger than Bhutto’s and it would take some time before his daughter, Benazir, would be able to fill his large shoes.
Benazir Bhutto
As compared to her father, who was the biggest player on the chessboard, Benazir Bhutto was just another player in post-Zia Pakistan. Her PPP is marked by her continuous jostling for control: she might have been formed a government, twice, but she did not have much power to exercise both times. Before she could assume control for a third time, she was assassinated.
But Benazir was an extraordinary woman: she had nerves of steel that would shame many of her contemporaries, women and men. Her party was molded in her image: persistent, wily and stylish. This perception allowed her to extend the mantra of Islamic Socialism while simultaneously also ushering in a neoliberal regime in the country.
Although privatisation was carried out extensively during her tenures, the trade union movement saw more gain in attaching itself with the PPP than with the traditional Left, since the PPP could also deliver some relief to them.
In ideological terms, Benazir had little to fall on, since the Cold War era was over and new alignments were being formed. Before she could settle on a position, she would often be forced to react to testing circumstances and douse the flames of crises. Even in navigating ethnic strife, in Karachi and elsewhere, Benazir’s ambivalence to employ violence would often compromise the PPP’s hand.
But what Benazir did ensure was a greater participation of women in politics and the public sphere. She constructed her image to be one of what a modern Pakistani woman was meant to be, at least in her estimation, and inspired a generation of women activists and leaders to join the mainstream. Benazir’s PPP was undoubtedly a vibrant party, one that did not rule the country for as long as she would have wanted, but her PPP’s greatest contribution is in moving the wheels of history ahead when it came to gender.
Asif Ali Zardari
Although there are significant differences between Asif Ali Zardari and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, there is one striking similarity: in their obsession with keeping their party in power, both men focused heavily on matters of government and much less on matters of their party. This in turn left their parties in great internal turmoil and strife.
While Zulfikar Ali Bhutto could present the 1973 constitution as his greatest achievement and Zardari could present the 18th Amendment and the NFC Award as stellar achievements of their respective PPPs, there was great oversight in developing party institutions and organs.
But Bhutto and Zardari could not have been more different: Zulfikar wanted power to be concentrated in his person while Asif preferred to delegate power. While Bhutto attracted millions with his populism, Zardari invited trouble with his machinations. While Zulfikar was intent on finding ways through politicking, Asif’s style is more transactional.
And although both styles have their particular merits and demerits, Zardari’s realist, pragmatic approach to politics — how to eke the most out of set limitations — became the mantra of his PPP. And to draw the most of meager resources, Zardari turned to his business-oriented friends to ensure that politics was always profitable for his party and government.
In maneuvering democracy, flawed and inconsistent as it may have been, towards the completion of a five-year tenure, Asif Ali Zardari left an indelible mark on Pakistan’s politics. But in inviting a transactional mode of politics into the PPP, he also condemned his party to a political abyss, from which it is still struggling to recover.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari
It’s a clean slate for Bilawal: no baggage, no history, and the chance of building a party as he wishes to. But what is clear till now is young Bilawal is attempting to stay away from his father’s mode of politics and instead promising a return to the roots of the PPP.
Only that the ideological roots of the PPP are not puritanical. Both Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir sought to define their party’s politics in ways that suited them and the larger context that the country’s politics was being framed in.
This time, the context that Bilawal finds himself surrounded by is a cleansing of politics by non-political forces. Bilawal’s PPP needs to be crafted in his mold: one that offers promise and innovation, both at a social level as well as in restoring a legacy of democracy.—AY
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 27th, 2015