Kamal’s rally

There was a slightly odd moment at the Pak Sarzameen Party rally at Bagh-e-Jinnah in Karachi on Sunday when its leader Mustafa Kamal began his speech just minutes after Imran Khan had finished speaking in Islamabad. Kamal may have done this only because he knew he would get maximum television coverage that way, but it couldn’t help but create the impression that there is something artificial about the PSP. This is not a party of the grassroots; it has been created for the specific purpose of bringing down the MQM. Whether it will succeed in doing so is up in the air. The party was able to draw a crowd of a few thousand people, which in itself is not bad for a party that is barely a month old. But viewed in light of claims that the whole of Karachi has been waiting for a messiah a la Kamal to snatch it from the MQM’s claws, and in light of the fact that the MQM now is in no position to, violently or otherwise, obstruct Kamal’s rallies or stop people joining them, this show did not amount to much. That there is considerable disillusionment with the MQM is true, but the PSP is yet to prove it is the one that offers a meaningful alternative. Kamal’s own speech was surprisingly brief, though long on platitudes. He called on the people of the country to be the real NAB and asked for power to be devolved to the grassroots, something his own former party – the MQM – is also currently demanding. All in all, the rally was a tepid affair that will do nothing to convince those who have already written off Kamal as a marginal player with little to offer besides his nuisance value.

Mustafa Kamal has tried to bring coverage to the PSP by staging a large press conference every time a new politician joins his party. So far, excluding Raza Haroon, most of those who joined the PSP of Qaimkhani and Kamal were marginal figures in the MQM. There is space for a political party to win over the support of those who are very understandably disillusioned by the MQM. The PTI had tapped into that vote in the 2013 elections but, by focusing only on protests since then rather than show an aptitude for governance, it has done nothing to build on it. The party is in any case in a state of disarray in Sindh. Meanwhile, the PSP is being led by the technocratic Kamal and may do little to inspire passion. The PSP is considered a top-down party that is being imposed on the people. Its first rally has done nothing to dispel that impression.