WHILE mainstream political parties tend to dominate political conversations and discourse in the country, especially during the election season, it is the smaller political parties that can afford to stay away from high politics and focus instead on ideas and issues that reflect the aspirations of constituencies where they organise, and therefore set the boundaries of debate.

Historically, it is their role as a pressure group where they have been most effective, but these parties can help shape legislation, and hence, impact government policy. The growing influence of smaller political parties can be seen in the movements, protests, campaigns, and the odd spectacle that catches the eye and gets reported in the media. Yet many of the parties behind them will contest the elections this month for the first time, and some of them believe they have a serious fighting chance.

‘Bring in educated individuals’

In July 2016, banners carrying a blown-up picture of then chief of the army staff Gen Raheel Sharif and a request “Jaanay ki baatein hui purani, Khuda k liye ab ajao” (the time to talk of leaving has passed, for God’s sake just come) mysteriously popped up overnight in 13 cities of the country, months before the COAS was set to retire. Reported as a call for the army chief to take over the government and impose martial law, the party behind the posters was taken to court for attempting to subvert the democratic set-up.

“We were only asking for an extension for the COAS since he had started Operation Zarb-i-Azb and we wanted him to see it through to the end,” insists Muhammad Kamran, a Faisalabad-based businessman, who heads the Move on Pakistan party behind the movement. He clarifies that his party is pro-democracy, and unlike other political parties that are scrambling to look for electables, his party prefers organising in the grassroots.

Kamran, who has business interests in multiple sectors including education, says he launched Move on Pakistan in 2013, with a goal to bring educated people to the legislature. “We are a nation in crisis, from water to energy, to health and education, each sector needs thorough attention and we believe that specialised and educated people can solve these problems best,” says the party chairman, who is contesting the general election this month from NA-102 and NA-110 in Faisalabad against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Tallal Chaudhry and Rana Afzal Khan. The party’s election symbol is an ostrich, and, according to Kamran, they have issued tickets to 32 candidates in total from Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh.

‘Justice, Livelihood, Security’

Launched in 2007 by ex-ISI chief Gen Hameed Gul, the Tehreek-i-Jawanan Pakistan, now led by the general’s son Abdullah Gul, is contesting the elections this year from all provinces. They hope to rally a sizeable number of voters behind their slogan of “Adalat, Kafalat, Hifazat” (Justice, Livelihood, Security), and believe they have most chances of winning seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Speaking to Dawn, the party’s general secretary Dr Irfan Ashraf says since 2007, they have been holding seminars and events to raise awareness on foreign intervention and terrorism in KP, Balochistan and Fata. Similarly, people are deprived of speedy justice, which the party hopes to ensure through a “one-window justice delivery system”.

There is terrorism and crime in the country because there’s no swift provision of justice, says Dr Ashraf, every citizen of the country deserves equal access to justice. “The youth of Fata is alienated from the ideology of Pakistan because of flawed policies of past governments,” he says, “We are working to bring them back into the ideological frame of our country.”

He elaborates that the army’s job is to guard the borders and it is the duty of civilians to guard the ideology of Pakistan. “That is what we are working towards,” he says, adding that they had added kafalat to their slogan, because Pakistan was meant to be an Islamic welfare state. Unemployment, unequal education system and lack of access to shelter are the main problems the people suffer from, he says, but is quick to add that his party does not oppose privatisation; it just wants to raise the standard of public school education in the country.

Their election symbol is a laptop and, according to Dr Ashraf, they have issued tickets to a total of 23 MPA candidates and three MNA candidates in KP, two MPA candidates from Lahore, an MPA candidate from Rawalpindi, an MNA candidate from Sahiwal and an MPA candidate from Sargodha. In Balochistan, he says, they have issued tickets to candidates for the provincial assembly from Kharan and Sibi. They had a candidate in Pishin but his nomination papers were rejected, he says. From southern Punjab, the party has fielded candidates for election in NA-185 and NA-186, and on four provincial seats.

Party with a plan

The Pakistan Freedom Movement is a relatively new party, but its leader has been involved in politics and advised various governments on policy matters since 1996. But Haroon Khawaja, a trained chartered accountant, wanted to base his politics on thorough research, so when he became an honorary adviser to the prime minister in 1997, he used that experience to learn about the workings of government. “I conducted thorough research for several years,” he explains, “I had close ties with the army, so after the coup in 1999, I was asked to join the government but I declined because I did not want to hurt the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) when it was at its lowest.”

He advised the provincial government in 2008, and finally completed his research on Pakistan and its problems in 2010, and formed the Pakistan Plan which, if followed, would transform the country in 36 months, he says. “So I took the plan to the PML-N and they were very happy with it, but you know how it is with such political parties, they represent multiple interests so my research wasn’t taken seriously.” He says he then parted ways with the PML-N, and joined the PTI for a few months hoping that they would take his work seriously, but that didn’t happen so he left that party as well. “I had a plan, I had a team of highly educated specialists who knew their fields of expertise, but no one was willing to give the plan a chance,” he says.

The party had received 150 applications for tickets from all over the country, he shares. On May 25, the ECP announced the date for the election (July 25) and gave aspirants five days to decide candidates and file nomination papers. Their allotted election symbol is a palm tree.

The criteria his party had set for candidates was: brand-new leaderships (people who haven’t contested before); should belong to the middle class; be educated; should be young. He says he could only manage to interview 45 candidates, and issued tickets to 17 of them. He will contest the poll from NA-130. He said they had a plan which would have made it possible for them to campaign effectively in 60 days however, considering there are barely a few weeks left, they would have to modify it. “I know we can turn things around if I get a chance to implement my plan, but don’t discount our chances of winning,” he says.

‘Focus on higher education reform’

The Pasban Party will contest elections for the first time this year but they have been around for a long time, and its roots go back to the early youth formations of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in 1990. “Pasban was formed as a populist front that would attract the youth and engage with issues relevant to them, under the banner of JI,” shares the leader of Pasban Party, Karachi-based Altaf Shakoor. However, the JI moved towards another bent of youth formations in 1994 which it termed Shabab-i-Milli. “Qazi Hussain Sahib moved away from us but we continued working as a pressure group and an NGO, and got ourselves registered as a political party in 2015,” he says.

For the past few months, Shakoor says, his party has been working as a pressure group for education reform in Sindh. From taking up admission issues and problems with centralised tests that were plaguing medical students in the province, he says his party has worked hard to raise awareness with the problems in syndicates and bodies made to oversee higher education.

The party has been allotted a bunch of balloons as its election symbol. “We have members all over the country,” he says, adding that they issued tickets to six people contesting on MNA seats and 16 on MPA seats.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2018