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The honeymoon begins

Legal eye
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
No matter how dismal or desperate the cir

By Babar Sattar
May 18, 2013
Legal eye
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
No matter how dismal or desperate the circumstances, fresh public mandate never fails to cultivate hope. That is the beauty of democracy and why it will continue to trump misconceived autocratic/technocratic solutions. Today Pakistan is again pregnant with possibilities. There is optimism in the air and for good reason. While we quibble about rigging charges in a dozen or so constituencies, it is easy to forget the distance we’ve travelled over the last month. Remember Tahirul Qadri, the return of Musharraf, the murderous TTP and our appetite for conspiracies of all sorts? The best thing about Elections 2013 is that it happened.
We were told that this is the year when the army chief is due to retire (again) and free and fair elections will not nurture opportunities for him to continue in uniform. While General Kayani kept insisting that khakis would support democracy and timely elections, we took his statements with a pinch of salt. We were told that this is the year for the chief justice to hang his gown and so it is in his personal interest (allied with that of General Kayani) to endorse the Bangladesh model (while giving himself an extension). The CJ kept emphasising that any delay in elections was out of the question but our disbelief remained unshaken.
We were told that it would not be possible to hold elections amidst rampant violence. And then we saw the highest voter turnout since 1970 – the most significant collective rebuff of this nation to vile the TTP threats to punish those who believe in ‘secular’ democracy. In the 2013 election people have voted for democracy and its ability to usher change. And while this may sound banal it is important to make this point. Pakistan has rewarded Nawaz Sharif, who became an anchor and shouldered the burden of democracy in opposition, even while Zardari & Co continued to milk both democracy and this country.
Pakistan rewarded Imran Khan who made politics fashionable and converted agnostics into believing that change is possible through a conventional representative system. And Pakistan severely punished the PPP and the ANP who were handed public mandate five years back amidst much fanfare but failed to perform. Pakistan, in other words, has clarified the bottom line: politics of patronage might still be alive and well, but if it is not accompanied by service delivery and improvement in the collective lives of the ordinary people, you’re out. Unconditional voter loyalty is dying in today’s Pakistan and with it the idea that political parties are immortal.
In this election, with all the imponderables in play ie changed demography, voter turnout, urbanisation, violence, decline of ideological politics etc, it was hard to predict and impossible to control the intended and unintended consequences of voter choices. This is also no longer the Pakistan where faceless puppet masters can order wholesale manufacture of desirable outcomes. The 2013 electoral outcome is thus a mini-miracle. Notwithstanding what party was your first choice, it is hard not to agree that overall one couldn’t have hoped for a better result for democracy and the country.
While talk of building consensus is all well and good, Pakistan needed a stable federal government that has the ability to take decisions and implement them. The solutions to key challenges confronting Pakistan – terrorism, economic meltdown and energy crisis etc – might not be products of consensus as there is no consensus over the cause of these problems. Further, coalition governments are weak and consequently vulnerable to considerations of expediency. The argument that a weak coalition forces parties to work together proved false during the last five years. In our setting it just gives everyone an excuse to do nothing and blame others.
Despite the general sense that we were heading toward another coalition, the PML-N has been endowed with the ability to form government at the centre with simple majority. That together with its outright majority in Punjab, the PML-N has no excuse not to perform. If it gets the solutions wrong or is unable to implement them effectively, the buck stops with Nawaz Sharif. But while Punjab voted conservatively (don’t fix what ain’t broken), KP preferred hope to experience. With Punjab voting PML-N and KP voting PTI, we have a safe mix of pragmatism and idealism and the prospect of healthy competition between the two.
For those who argued that 2013 was Imran Khan’s moment and if he couldn’t do it now history wouldn’t throw him another opportunity are wrong. Unless you got carried away by emotion or idealism, there was sober recognition all along (backed by opinion polls) that Imran Khan doesn’t have a shot at forming government at the centre in 2013. But this still is Imran Khan’s moment: he has built a national party out of nothing; emerged as the main opposition leader (notwithstanding who gets the actual office); and has been afforded the opportunity to establish in KP that he is not just a dreamer but also a deliverer.
KP has gambled on Imran’s promise and it is up to him to establish that this very troubled province got it right the first time. If he does a decent job, Imran Khan will be Sharif’s main competitor in 2018. But if the PTI fails to deliver in KP or Imran Khan doesn’t emerge as a mature constructive opposition leader capable of navigating compulsions of power while simultaneously putting his money where his mouth is, he might not get another shot at the top job. Fair enough. The competition between the PML-N and the PTI will force both to raise their game and may the best team win the next round. What could be better for Pakistan?
But so far the score is the PML-N 3, the PTI 0. Nawaz Sharif was gracious in his victory speech, Imran Khan wasn’t. In visiting Imran at the hospital in the backdrop of Imran’s unnecessarily ill-mannered campaign speeches, Nawaz Sharif has emerged as the bigger man. And while the PML-N has demonstrated respect for the PTI’s mandate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by refusing to play along with the Maulana, the top-leadership of the PTI has been disinclined to distinguish between the deplorable cases of rigging in a dozen or so constituencies and the clear overall mandate to rule that the public has handed to the PML-N.
Standing up for ones rights doesn’t require the denial of entitlements of others. It is the responsibility of the PTI’s leadership to ensure that its starry-eyed supporters understand that fighting for one’s rights and accepting those of others are complementary concepts. With power comes responsibility. The PTI is no longer an outsider to the corridors of power or a pressure group. From here on the party will be judged harshly not just for its acts but also its omissions.
What the PTI deserves credit for is the courage shown by its leaders and supporters in Karachi in face of threats of physical violence by Altaf Hussain. It goes without saying that fascist tendencies implicit in pre-emptively justifying the likelihood of party workers losing their minds and savaging critics is neither legal nor acceptable in any civilised society. More importantly Pakistan has changed much over the last decade. Bellowing threats at all and sundry – political opponents, media, judges, establishment et el – is now counterproductive.
By the next election, technology alone will make it impossible to rig elections. With an independent media, a bold judiciary, a vocal civil society and continuity of democracy, the strategy of threatening opponents and critics into submission will no longer work. If there is any lesson in the treatment just meted out to the PPP, it is that a political party can nurture a sense of immortality only at its own peril. These are changing times and only those who change along with it will survive and thrive. It will be a shame if an urban middle class party such as the MQM cannot see the writing on the wall and reinvent itself.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu