None of about half a dozen Sindhi nationalist parties and groups who took part in the first phase of the local government elections recently held in Sukkur and Larkana divisions succeeded in getting more than two candidates elected. Off the mark among them were the Awami Jamhoori Party (AJP) — an offshoot of the Qaumi Awami Tehreek — which secured one seat each in Warah and Naseerabad towns in Larkana division, and the Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP) which won just one seat, in Bhurchandi town (Ghotki district) in Sukkur division in a contest for over 3,800 seats.

The Awami Workers Party, a left-wing group, also managed to secure two seats in Naseerabad town.

The Sindh United Party (SUP), led by Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, the grandson of the iconic Sindhi nationalist leader G.M. Syed and a former deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, attributes his party’s total failure to alleged massive rigging and suppression of rival candidates by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The STP and many other nationalist groups routinely blame “repression by feudal mindset within the ruling parties”.

Analysts, however, say that nationalist parties and groups failed due to their “poor organic linkages” with the masses. The Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz (JSM-R) and QAT were among the other nationalist parties who fielded a large number of candidates in the election.

Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, whose SUP had ambitiously targeted urban parts of the province by fielding around 300 candidates in all eight districts, offers a host of reasons to explain the fiasco. “They [PPP] had used the entire police force against our candidates and their proposers; they kidnapped our people and forced many of them to withdraw from the contest,” Mr Shah while speaking to Dawn.

“You can call it a selection, it was not an election,” he added.

He said his party had demanded deployment of the army and Rangers to oversee voting. “But our demand remained unheeded to the advantage of the PPP,” Shah said.

“Better alternatives are there in Sindh, but the fact is that they are not allowed an equal opportunity to fight against the PPP. However, such tactics will never deter us from our quest for a better Sindh,” he said.

“Nationalist parties are, by and large, limited to releasing press statements. They do little work on the ground. This is what hinders their rise on the popularity graph,” said Dr Jaffar Ahmed, director of the Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi. He added that one should not be astonished over the PPP’s win as incumbency always had an advantage.

“Educational institutions produced workers for the nationalist parties. But that resource withered away after [former military ruler] General Ziaul Haq banned student unions and their activities. Moreover, nationalist leaders had no, or weak, organic linkages with the masses.”

Anwer Soomro, secretary general of the QAT, refused to accept that his party’s defeat on all the 15 seats that they had contested was a rejection of his party’s policies.

“It is not so,” insisted Mr Soomro, “our candidates were contesting against powerful feudal lords and tribal chieftains who kill people on a whim. Yet it did not deter us from fighting elections.”

He claimed at some places QAT candidates were on the verge of victory and cited results of Gahibidero where the QAT candidate polled 850 against 1,200-plus votes bagged by the rival PPP candidate. “It is the first time we are contesting an LG election ... we expect better performance in the second phase,” he said.

Political commentator Jami Chandio said the results proved little about PPP victory but depicted more a ‘failure’ of nationalist parties to motivate people and attract them towards their programme.

“Instead of condemning people for not supporting them, they should seriously deliberate on the reasons of their failure,” he said.

He said that when people voted for hundreds of independent candidates and got them elected, it raised questions as to why they did not vote for nationalist parties.

“They should take the results as an opportunity to rethink their strategy even though they have seldom considered changing it in the past.”

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2015

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