When parties die

Legal eye
Political parties too have a sense of immortality like human beings. We know we have to die one day. But, exceptions aside, this immutable fact has little influence on what we do when we are alive. The PPP is like the terminally ill cancer patient with a death wish: the patient who will even refuse to acknowledge that the sickness has spread and without surgery the prognosis is bleak. Maybe you can’t kill political parties, as our dictators found out. But can’t political parties die a natural death? Isn’t irrelevance a precursor to nothingness?
Two myths (one old and one new) have been regurgitated to keep second-tier PPP leaders in a state of hypnosis. The older myth was that anyone who quit the PPP stood cursed and had his political career destroyed. This may have been true for the 70s or 80s, but not anymore. Shah Mehmood Qureshi busted the myth by jumping ship at the right time. With politics of ideology having waned, Pakistan’s changed demography and political economy and lack of popular appeal of Zardari & Co, association with the PPP might just be the new curse.
And the new myth minted post Benazir Bhutto was that Asif Ali Zardari would singularly out-manoeuvre everyone else (remember ‘ek Zardari sab per bhari’). It is probably true that we as a nation are drawn more to wiliness than rectitude when it comes to our politicians. Even as late as 2012 we had analysts theorising how Zardari & Co might be able to employ his cleverness and negotiation skills to cobble together a coalition and win another term in office. But the 2013 elections wiped the PPP out, proving that Zardari may just be too clever by half.
The PPP was giddy with delight at the effective use of Machiavellian tactics to secure for itself the office of chairman Senate earlier this year. But what does retaining this ceremonial office for a three-year period do for the PPP as a party? Will it breathe life into a dying party? Will it make the PPP rise from the ashes in Punjab? Will it cure the PPP of its marauding ways in Sind? Will it help the PPP reimagine its purpose, reinvent its rhetoric and become relevant to today’s Pakistan?
Writing the PPP’s eulogy is a sad affair. But being true to our tradition of not speaking ill of those who are dead, this might be the opportune moment for doing so. Pakistan has certainly not seen another party with so much potential and promise, comprising so many intellectuals, poets, orators and committed supporters (the ‘jayalas’) leaving aside the charismatic Bhuttos – and yet achieve so little. Is Asif Zardari alone responsible for the PPP’s impending demise or do stalwarts who acquiesced to the party’s morbid state share some blame too?
The PPP’s decline is symptomatic of the larger malaise afflicting Pakistan: the appealing ethic of success preventing individuals of integrity from taking positions based on principles; nauseating servility to those ahead of you in the power pyramid almost resembling servitude; allowing expediency to trump ideological positions; refusal to admit mistakes or learn from them; and denial of changing times, circumstances and demography and the need to connect with issues of the day consuming public imagination.
When the PPP was in power in Islamabad Raza Rabbani was snubbed, Sherry Rehman brushed aside and Aitzaz Ahsan ignored – while sycophants who swore allegiance to Zardari & Co were empowered and enabled to run amok. Now that the party stands demolished in the centre, Punjab and KP, it needs to rely on the personal skills of gifted veterans to stay relevant in Islamabad. And so we find Raza Rabbani appointed chairman Senate, Aitzaz Ahsan made leader of the house in the Senate and Sherry Rehman just sworn in as senator.
However, in Sindh where the PPP is in power it is the same old story. We still find a government run by pygmies focused primarily on exhibiting loyalty to Zardari & Co followed by making hay while the sun shines. The PPP has not even been in the run in the Punjab by-elections, KP local bodies elections and GB Legislative Assembly elections. The shameful Zulfiqar Mirza episode has exposed the limits of the PPP’s power even in Sindh. So if the stick is no longer strong enough and there are few carrots to share, what will become of the PPP even within its heartland?
On issues the PPP has been equally bankrupt. When Salmaan Taseer stood against persecution in the name of religion, he stood alone and was mowed down. When Sherry Rehman spoke against bigotry in the name of faith, she was left alone by the party to fend for itself. When there was need in 2014 to oppose appeasement of ‘our TTP brethren’, the PPP chose to go along with ‘national consensus’. Post-Peshawar, the PPP that had retained a moratorium on death penalty for five years, voted in favour of amending the constitution to create military courts.
Notwithstanding its pro-poor rhetoric and reliance on old hackneyed slogans, are there any ideas or principles that the PPP stands for today? When the PPP organised the big coming-out show for Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari last year in Karachi, one hoped some new thinking would have gone into putting it together. Unfortunately, the lacklustre event turned out to be nothing more than a big budget melodrama that could possibly appeal only to ageing jiyalas already committed unconditionally to the PPP.
It was sad enough that the largest political party of Pakistan in 2007 and certainly the most well-entrenched across the federation perceived itself as a family heirloom that had to be passed on from Benazir Bhutto to her teenage son after BB’s assassination. But what was tragic was that, notwithstanding such regressive view of self and its perceived need to rely on Bhutto genes to save PPP, the entire party couldn’t collectively put together a plan to groom the new chairman for a challenging job.
The Pakistan of 2015 is nothing like that of the 1990s. Back then the PML and the PPP were the mainstream parties. Even when the PPP’s voter was mad over its dismal performance in power, he stayed home but didn’t switch sides. The PTI’s meteoric rise and Election 2013 established that it wasn’t just the PPP’s claim to power but also its existence as a mainstream national party that was now in question. Its refusal to be jolted out of slumber post-May 2013, take stock of its blunders and conceive a reorganisation plan suggests that the party is content living off family silver for so long as it lasts.
In the new power structure, the PML-N and the PTI are the two mainstream political parties. Even within Punjab’s rural constituencies, those opposed to the PML-N and its candidates are vying for PTI tickets. The old jiyalas are hanging up their gloves and their successors-in-interest want to have little to do with the PPP. Is all of this obvious to everyone other than the PPP’s old guard? What then is Zardari & Co thinking? Where do Aitzaz Ahsan and Raza Rabbani expect the PPP to be post-Election 2018?
Zardari & Co might be happy milking the PPP for as long as it can. And Aitzaz Ahsan and Raza Rabbani might have reconciled their personal ambitions to making fiery speeches in parliament for the next few years before walking into the sunset. What is a shame is that the passing of the PPP will mark the end of even the theoretical commitment of a national political force to the idea of a liberal Pakistan.
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu