Politics at stake

This week’s election for the office of Senate chairman and the election of senators before that have raised serious questions on the role of political parties in strengthening democracy in the country.

The ruling Muslim League had 21 MPAs in the Balochistan Assembly but could not win a single Senate seat from the province, while the PPP had no more than seven MPAs in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly but was able to win two Senate seats. This has given rise to questions of horse-trading and MPs changing loyalties. We seem to be back to square one. The gains of mature politics, struggles against dictatorship, sacrifices laid down by people for the restoration of a democratic polity – all is now at stake.

Following serious accusations of shifting political loyalties, Pakistan’s politics seems to be shattered and a loss of trust and confidence on politicians has resurfaced. Political opportunism has damaged the standing of the politicians in the eyes of informed citizens and the civil society who appreciate values of honesty and uprightness. These acts of defection and hypocrisy have undermined politics; and a weak politics will not be able to defend civil liberties and the spirit of democracy. The alliance between arch-rivals PTI and PPP, the MQM-P (Bahadurabad faction) and some defectors, has turned all their accusations of corruption against each other into meaningless words. These allies have proven that if a political need arises they will go to any extent to strike a compromise.

The opposition, during the five-year rule of the PML-N, remained divided and never agreed on any point. The PTI was fond of taking a solo flight, assuming that it could replace other political forces in the country by a sweeping victory in the general elections. But the results of recent by-elections have brought the PTI back on the ground and revealed that the party needs to reassess its standing. Regardless of any of this, the party has brought the country back to the culture of striking alliances and getting one’s number game strong.

But let’s keep the criticism on this alliance aside for a while, and ask whether the PTI and PPP really had any other option to win the Senate chairman election. By standing divided they could have only paved the way for the PML-N to capture the top slot of the Senate. With its allies, the PML-N had emerged stronger, and a weak and divided opposition would have lost had they not adjusted their seats. Why do we expect Pakistani politicians to play smooth political games? As is said, politics is the art of possibilities, and the PPP and PTI saw the possibility of depriving the PML-N of a majority – and they were successful in doing so. This is not the end of the PPP, as some senators from the ruling coalition have suggested in their speeches in parliament.

The country’s political alignment has pitted the PML-N against the ‘others’. But who are these ‘others’? Isn’t it just one big province of Punjab versus the rest of the provinces? The under-currents of this divide are not as simple as some people would want us to believe. Provincialism is creeping into our federal polity and the PML-N is not realising this because it benefits from this rising provincialism.

What has the party really offered to the other provinces? Pakistan’s federal government just seems to be an extension of the Punjab government. All key federal positions are given to one province, from the slot of the NA speaker to the major federal ministries. Sadly, even for the slot of Senate chairman, the PML-N fielded a senator from Punjab. The party showed utter disregard for the representation of the other federating units. Such a strong hold on key federal offices by one province would have sent a dangerous message of divisiveness to the country.

Did the PML-N pay any heed to the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award? Dr Qaiser Bengali’s latest research, titled ‘An empirical insight from Balochistan’, shows how little the federal government spent outside Gwadar in the province. The PML-N is not becoming a national party. Its core leadership and policymakers come from Lahore, that too only central Punjab. With the current structure of the federation, it is one province that is dominating the others. But Senate is the only house where smaller provinces together can resist some of the dominant province’s policies.

However, indirect Senate elections leave enough room for manipulation and horse-trading. It is time a constitutional amendment to hold direct elections for the Upper House was introduced. By accepting turncoats, the joint opposition is bringing back the politics of the 1990s. Thus, undermining politics and, in the process, contributing to the depoliticisation of society. At the end of the day, both are blindly pursuing their own political interests – their victims being fair politics and the federation.

The Charter of Democracy is now a story of the past. In these divisive and tense political times, only fresh elections can bring some calm, and whoever wins can get some time to set the country on the right path. A prolonged political struggle only wastes energies; there are more pressing issues to be looked after such as CPEC agreements, the declining FDI, rising trade deficits and current account imbalances. All these challenges require political stability to be overcome. The 1990s was a lost decade but we are aiming to go back to that time. Hadn’t we had enough of that? Do we ever calculate the opportunity cost of a political crisis? All politics, in our region or the world at large, has become a struggle for economic gains. Pakistan’s political leaders are wasting their energies in endless internal fights.

Once the federal budget is announced in April, it will be the right time to hold fresh elections. Only elections can usher in a period of stability. Let these politicians champion their causes in the run-up to the elections, let them fight the battle for power for votes, which is truly worth it. The current high political temperature is not going to land us anywhere positive. The recent ink and shoe attacks are horrible and unacceptable. Have we forgotten that ‘violence breeds violence’? This madness needs to stop. This is a fire that will engulf anyone if allowed to burn.

Email: mush.rajpar@gmail.com

Twitter: @MushRajpar