The opposition’s dilemmas

Is it a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth? Or is it a case of an underwhelmed will? In either case, the political parties in the opposition are hesitant to go after the government with all guns blazing notwithstanding their persistent allegations regarding the 2018 national elections – the legitimacy test – and that the ruling party has made a mess of the economy – the performance test. On the other hand, the government is wading into the opposition at full tilt. Not only are top opposition leaders being put behind bars one after the other, several lawmakers are also said to be set to defect to the treasury benches.

The recently held All Parties Conference (APC) was rich in anti-government rhetoric but its a million dollar question whether the opposition will be as good as its word.

The oligopolistic business model can be used to explicate the opposition’s dilemmas. The seminal feature of an oligopolistic market is interdependence of the firms. If one of the major firms decides to cut prices, raise output or introduce a new product, the decision is bound to affect the rest of the industry. For example, in case Airbus introduces a more fuel efficient aircraft, the decision will reverberate through the aviation industry. In such a scenario, its main rival, Boeing, can’t afford to twiddle its thumbs.

Because of interdependence, the firms’ behaviour in an oligopolistic market is either collaborative or strategic. Collaborative behaviour means the firms agree, overtly or tacitly, to make key decisions in tandem with one another. The collaboration is always subject to falling apart unless an entity, endogenous or exogenous, is powerful enough to make the cartel play by the agreed rules.

Alternately, the enterprises may not rub shoulders and instead compete with one another. In such a scenario, they will indulge in strategic behaviour. Since the actions of one enterprise bear upon those of others, before making a strategic move, each of them needs to take into account the likely reaction of others. If Coca Cola reduces prices, other soft drink manufacturers, notably Pepsi, may also do so to offset a possible advantage that may accrue to the former; otherwise they would lose their market share. Therefore, before offering price cuts, Coca Cola would take into account the high probability of the rivals keeping up.

The strategic behaviour is a zero-sum game in which the gains secured by one player exactly match the loss suffered by the other. The victory of one is inexorably built on the defeat of the other. In such a scenario, a win-win situation is not possible.

The decision to adopt collaborative or competitive behaviour is not irrevocable. Even if rivals agree to play along, the possibility of one selling others down the river always looms large. Conversely, competitors may agree to abide by common principles and thus convert a zero-sum game into a win-win outcome. It all depends upon the dynamics of the circumstances and the make-up of the players.

These two factors also undergird the stances of the PML-N and the PPP, the two major parties in the opposition, over the last one year. When the results of the 2018 national elections were announced, all the parties, with the exception of the PTI, which finished first in the race, cast aspersions on their credibility. But they faced a split on the way forward. Both the PPP and the PML-N thought that discretion was the better part of valour; so they decided to take oath in the new assemblies, leaving the smaller parties, such as the JUI-F, which wanted to take their resentment to the streets, high and dry.

For the PPP what mattered was what stance the PML-N would take, and vice versa. In case the PPP decided to stay away while the PML-N opted to join the assemblies, the latter would reap all the benefits of such a decision: the privileges of parliamentarians including the right of arrested members to be produced in the house on the speaker’s orders; membership including chairmanship of several standing committees; and the opportunity to fulminate against government policies in the assembly.

In a hung parliament, where the PTI enjoys a razor-thin majority, a change in government can’t be ruled out. Who knows who the beneficiary of such a change will be? The decision to boycott the assemblies might have made weak-charactered parliamentarians-elect ditch their party. To top it all, choosing to go the whole hog over the ‘rigged’ elections would have constituted an affront to the powerful quarters.

In case of the PPP, the two additional factors that weighed upon the decision to turn down the smaller parties’ proposal to launch public protests against the elections were that it won more seats in the National Assembly in 2018 than it did in 2013; and that it had retained its absolute majority in Sindh – its power base.

Personality factors were also at play. Both Shahbaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are men of enterprise. The junior Sharif is an adroit administrator, who is known for getting things done expeditiously, while Zardari is an astute dealmaker, who always has a rabbit or two up his sleeve. But neither is a dab hand at agitation politics. Both believe in ducking and defending rather than taking the bull by the horns. Bucking the system is neither’s cup of tea. This makes them highly unlikely to lead a popular movement to its logical conclusion.

It was not possible for the opposition to turn its back on the alleged rigging. Since they were not prepared to take to the streets, the only way the opposition parties could keep the issue alive was to have a joint parliamentary committee setup to probe the alleged rigging. It was on the proposal of the PPP and PML-N that the ruling PTI agreed – nay, jumped at it – to set up the committee. But the proposal was a madcap ab initio. It was never possible for a body of lawmakers comprising an equal number of members from each side of the political divide to answer the question of rigging in the affirmative. Not surprisingly, exasperated over the working of the committee, the leader of the opposition has announced to pull out the PML-N members from it.

The PPP-PML-N collaboration broke down after those two decisions, viz sitting in the assemblies and the constitution of a parliamentary panel on rigging. They failed to bring a joint candidate for the office of the prime minister, and later for that of the president. All those developments were taking place in the backdrop of a cat-and-mouse game, in which the PPP was fated to play the unenviable role.

At the recently held APC – the brainchild of Maulana Fazalur Rehman, who seems to be the only opposition leader committed to going all out against the government for reasons of his own – two important decisions were made: that the opposition would bring a no-confidence motion against Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani; and that a mass contact campaign would be launched all over Pakistan and July 25, the day national elections were held a year earlier, would be observed as a ‘black day’. Sanjrani’s election, it may be recalled, was when the PPP rubbed shoulders with the PTI to block the PML-N’s nominee for Senate chairman. This only highlights the inconsistency that has been the hallmark of the PPP’s politics in recent times. The APC’s declaration was followed by Shahbaz Sharif’s call for mid-terms elections. The PPP is yet to come out in support of the proposal. Besides, there is no entity powerful enough to make the two parties play by the agreed decisions.

At any rate, the opposition’s capability to force snap polls on its own is under serious question. Its predicament can be summed up in a couplet from the incomparable Mirza Ghalib: “Tha zindagi mein marg ka khatka laga hua; urrne se paishtar bhi mera rung zard tha.” Translation: All my life, the fear of death kept haunting me; so much that when my soul was about to take a leap, my colour faded to yellow”.

The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist.

Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com

Twitter: @hussainhzaidi