Election diary : Nawabshah poll an affair of grandees
By Bahzad Alam Khan
NAWABSHAH: Dr Azra Fazal is disarmingly candid. The diminutive politician, whose brother is married to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, concedes that the Pakistan People’s Party is in a bind in Nawabshah. It has no option but to field moneyed grandees as candidates.
“It is a pity that we have to select bigwigs and not workers as candidates. In fact the election process has become very expensive over the years — now you’re actually talking about crores of rupees. Political parties can set up funds to support financially weak candidates but, then, political parties are not generous,” she explains as a monochrome picture of a rather youngish-looking Benazir looks down at her sister-in-law at the sprawling Zardari House.
The PPP coasted to victory in Nawabshah in the 2002 election, winning the two national assembly seats and five provincial assembly seats. While it did not perform equally well in the subsequent local government polls, another sister of Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur, managed to get herself re-elected as Nawabshah district nazim. Since she and the PML-backed candidate, Khan Mohammad Dahri, obtained an equal number of votes, the final result was decided by the toss of a coin. The PPP is now taking the safe step of fielding almost all those candidates who romped home to victory in the 2002 polls employing, perhaps, the “crores of rupees” Ms Fazal talks about.
Ms Fazal also concedes that a tiresome complaint against her is that neither she nor the other PPP winner of the national assembly seat from the Nawabshah district spent enough time in their constituencies.
“I know that some constituents feel this way about me but there is very little I could have done about it,” she says. “MNAs have to be in Islamabad to take part in the legislative business conducted by the national assembly. And even when the national assembly sessions were inquorate, I used to be there. It is very easy for MPAs to be with their constituents because they can drive back from Karachi within four to five hours.”
Will the constituents’ dissatisfaction with the PPP lawmakers translate into an opponents’ win in Nawabshah? Not by a long chalk, it seems. However, it is not only the anti-incumbency factor but also the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s somewhat incremental ascendancy in the urban areas of the Nawabshah district that the PPP will have to combat.
“We are an organised party and our political leaders are available to the masses at all times. Even the much-vaunted PPP election machinery can’t beat us. A couple of provincial assembly seats from Nawabshah are within our grasp,” Urdu-speaking Abdul Rasheed Arain Bhaiyya of the MQM rattles off the platitudinous claims he makes at public meetings.
Wearing the traditional Sindhi cap, Bhaiyya is accompanied by a couple of provincial assembly candidates. Most of them are not likely to win, yet they all sport the smug smiles of candidates certain of landslide wins.
“We are not deluding ourselves, our optimism is based on cold calculations,” says Mr Arain. “In the last general election, the winning candidate from PS-24 obtained over 24,400 votes. Our candidate got around 18,700 votes. We have been working in this constituency since 2002 with an eye to winning the forthcoming election.”
Miles away from the urban areas of Nawabshah, in a small sleepy town called Qazi Ahmed (PS-28), Khamiso Khan says that the MQM’s influence is too localised to matter to the PPP.
“I am a hari of Sardar Jam Tamachi and I will vote for him. He is a good-natured man. Besides, he belongs to the PPP,” says Khamiso as he tucks into a plateful of dal mash at a roadside eatery.
On his part, Sardar Tamachi says he knows only too well that if he retakes PS-28 in the Jan 8 election, it will be because of the political party he is affiliated with.
“I will be honest with you. If I can bag around 15,000 votes on my own, the remaining votes are cast in my favour because I am a PPP candidate,” he admits. “But a lot depends on how the January polls are conducted. I am not very hopeful. The caretaker government in Sindh is known to be partial. Former education minister Khan Mohammad Dahri was in the government that conducted the 2002 polls and his son, Dr Bahadur Khan Dahri, was a candidate in this constituency. Things are no better this time.”
Dr Dahri remains unconvinced, however. While the large number of four-wheel-drive vehicles outside his Daulatpur residence indicates that he is no minor feudal lord, Dr Dahri insists that Sardar Tamachi makes ordinary people feel like dirt. “He has lost popularity,” he says. “They have done nothing for the people of this area. I am certain that he will lose his seat.”
Both Sardar Tamachi and Dr Dahri do not offer cogent reasons for the incredibly slow tempo of electioneering in their district. Dr Azra Fazal’s assessment, however, is down-to-earth. “Look, there is apathy in the people. Besides, for farmers it is the busiest period of the year: they are cutting the sugarcane crop and sowing wheat. They are more interested in bread-and-butter issues than politics,” she says while seeking to explain why PPP supporters have been keeping a low profile in Nawabshah.
But if the election fervour has yet to grip the traditional PPP heartland in Sindh, the party should do some soul-searching.
