The flat and round of politics

It is, by all means, one of the most conspicuous ironies of our short political history. A person who was brought up in the lap of a despot has emerged as the most potent symbol of liberal politics in present-day Pakistan.

By contrast, a political party that had its genesis in the struggle against another dictator – and which for several years remained a torchbearer of popular politics – is leaning on chintzy tactics to get back into the corridors of power. History thy name is irony.

Nawaz Sharif set off his political career under the wings of military dictator General Ziaul Haq. He started as the finance minister of Punjab and was made the province’s chief minister after the 1985 elections. From then on, he was to be the proverbial blue-eyed boy of the establishment. In 1990, he assumed the highest political office of the land.

The novelist E M Forster believed characters in a work of fiction can be placed in two categories: flat and round. Flat characters don’t change in the course of a novel and always do what they are expected to do. Round characters undergo change and often take the reader by surprise. Flat and round characters can be found in real life as well. Sharif has turned out to be a round character.

The year 1993 was a turning point in his career. The irresistible impulse to break free made him bite the hand that had so far fed him. He was forced to vacate the prime minister’s office. His role was beginning to change. Four years later, he swept back to power. But he would never enjoy the same confidence of his mentors again.

After he had been sent home by the Supreme Court for not being truthful and honest, Sharif had two courses of action open to him. He could have grinned, borne his disqualification and packed his bags. But he did not choose the reconciliatory course. Instead, he decided to go on the offensive and started rounding on the institutions that, he believed, unfairly brought his tenure to an abrupt end. Although nearly eight months have passed since he vacated the PM office, he continues to blow hot and cold. He has been pulling in massive crowds, which has raised his political stature. And, despite being debarred from formally heading a political party, he continues to lead the PML-N by the nose.

The keynote of Sharif’s narrative is that an elected prime minister can only be sent home by the electorate or their representative – parliament. This is also one of the cardinal principles of political liberalism. For example, even though the queen of England is legally competent to dismiss the prime minister as well as the House of Commons in the presence of strong constitutional conventions, she can’t even think of doing so. The PM can be voted out either by the electorate or by parliament. The same is the case with India. In the US, the president, who is the chief executive, can either be impeached by Congress or defeated in an election. There’s no other way to throw him overboard – not even if he happens to be Donald Trump.

Sharif’s narrative assumed a more powerful expression after the apex court’s verdict debarred a person who is not qualified to be a parliamentarian from heading a political party. Once again, the narrative is rooted in the liberal view that the right to form or head a political party is a fundamental right, and that it is for a party to decide who will lead it.

From a legal standpoint, Sharif’s position is untenable. His term as PM came to an end because he ceased to be a member of parliament under Article 62 of the constitution as per the apex court’s July 28, 2017 judgment. The definitive interpretation of the law and the constitution is the exclusive domain of the Supreme Court. All else is wit and gossip. In addition, since democracy has a chequered history in Pakistan, constitutional conventions have not taken root. In the absence of these conventions, the letter of the law prevails.

Having lost on the legal front, Sharif is fighting a political battle that a politician must fight. At times, he goes overboard in passing caustic remarks against the judiciary, which are not in order. But no one can deny that he is entitled to reach out to the people and win popular support for his narrative.

All other mainstream political parties have been dismissive of his narrative – and understandably so. In a rat race, one player’s loss is another player’s gain. However, political expediency apart, other political parties would also have reacted in a similar fashion if their top leadership was disqualified. Does the PPP approve of the Supreme Court’s judgments in which it upheld the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto in 1988 and 1996, not to speak of the death sentence it awarded to ZA Bhutto? To date, the party has not reconciled itself to those decisions.

Like Sharif, the PPP is a round character. The PPP’s anti-establishment credentials received the first serious jolt when Benazir Bhutto made a common cause with the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK), an archetype establishmentarian, in forcing the popularly-elected Sharif to quit in 1993. For a party that avowedly believed in respecting the popular mandate, striking an alliance with a GIK-like figure to force the exit of an elected government was hard to defend. Next, Bhutto struck a deal with the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf in the form of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that washed away corruption charges against the party’s top leadership and subsequently enabled the party to govern the country for five years.

Asif Zardari presided over a fundamental shift in the party’s stance from populism to the politics of reconciliation. Abandoning popular politics has, however, almost written the party off. With the exception of Sindh, where it adroitly plays the ethnic card, the PPP has been reduced to a rump. Shorn of its popular strength, the party has been grasping at the straws to make itself palatable to the arbiters of the last resort.

In politics, fair is foul and foul is fair. In the scramble for power, questions of morality and law often take a backseat. That said, by making choices in testing political situations, a party positions itself in a particular way. It can choose to hunt with the hounds or run with the hare. It can’t do both. If it does, it leaves no one with any doubt that it is with neither.

Sharif is also projecting himself as a revolutionary, which he is not. The word ‘revolution’ has been so blatantly misused in our society that it has almost been denuded of all meaning. Any political change, including a change in government, is touted as a revolution and the change-maker is cast, or masquerades, as a revolutionary.

A revolution entails changes in the political or economic organisation that have far-reaching significance, changes which shake the sociopolitical order to its foundations. If political or economic power only changes hand and the same elite – albeit in a different garb – continue to be in charge of the destiny of the people, the change is anything but revolutionary. At any rate, liberals are seldom cast in the revolutionary mould.

Sharif is not seeking to shake the prevalent political or economic order. He has never attacked crony capitalism or the heartless market forces that survive every change in the government. He is not a whit against the sticky-fingered elite or racketeering businesspersons as long as they don’t turn against him. In fact, like other frontline political leaders, he draws his strength from the existing forces. He is only keen to get the pre-July 28, 2017 situation restored.

The writer is a freelancecontributor.

Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com