Having been in business for decades, most stockbrokers have learnt not to openly take sides during political power struggles.

That is not to say that the brokers’ community stands on the sidelines watching the elephant’s fight. What they do is run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

A stockbroker reminded the writer that for three decades, the stockbrokers followed the business and industrial stalwarts whose sympathy and support was inclined to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was widely touted as a ‘business-friendly’ man, given his own penchant for business and industry. As his popularity started to wane and another political party seemed to dislodge the government, brokers stepped aside.

A person in the know affirmed that brokers, like businessmen, surreptitiously contribute to those political parties’ election campaign funds which they believe could win the majority vote. “It is all a matter of backing the right horse,” he said.

Shaukat Tarin, former finance minister in the Yousaf Raza Gillani-led government, would not comment on the leanings of brokers but said that it was not the business of the businessmen to get involved in politics. “Business needs a level playing field from all governments”, he said.

The broker community is generally meek where declaration of support is concerned, but it has learned the benefits of having friends in high offices of major political parties

Several brokers contacted declined to say which side were they on in the current political wrangling. But off the record one said that it made sense to have friends in high offices of major political parties.

“Sometimes a broker or a businessman may be spotted having lunch with the leader of one party and at dinner with the leader of a rival party, pretending to laugh heartily at the silly jokes of both,” he said.

As in any other trade, there are exceptions among the stockbroker fraternity as well. During MQM’s heyday — when it virtually ruled Sindh’s urban areas, principally Karachi — a broker known for his strong-arm tactics did not conceal his support for the party.

MQM supremo Altaf Hussain returned the favour by addressing a public meeting held inside the brokers’ bungalow in which he issued thinly-veiled threats to the regulators to halt the market meltdown.

But such incidents are few and far between; generally the broker community is meek where declaration of support for a particular political party or even the corporate regulators is concerned.

A fund manager made an interesting disclosure. He said that when the infamous ‘floor’ was imposed during the 2008 market crash preventing not only further fall but also closing the exit door for foreign investors, he put the blame on the apex regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in a talk show on a TV channel.

“I was managing assets of six funds at the time and had received awards for best run funds for two years in succession,” he said and added: “Yet only a day later, my funds received a total of seven show-cause notices from the Islamabad-based apex regulator,” he said with a broad smile.

He conceded that the notices were put on hold by the SECP only after he flew over to the capital and profusely apologised to the regulator and ate his words. The government had many ways of making an unfriendly broker or an industrialist fall in line; the most dreaded among them being the taxman. He would be followed by the NAB and hounded by the SECP.

A former top regulator, whom the stockbroker fraternity loved to hate for his perseverance in implementation of the capital market reforms, said that during his stint in office, he had to fight on many fronts.

He asserted that stockbrokers were chummiest with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the Musharraf era. According to him, the brokers even promised to get Aziz elected on a seat from Karachi in the next general elections. “Shaukat Aziz virtually regarded the stock market as his constituency,” he said, adding that at the time there was an unholy alliance between the Ministry of Finance and stockbrokers.

In developed markets such as America, businessmen, industrialist, Wall Street and even professional bodies such as those of chartered accountants openly disclose the amount of money they allocate in support of the Democrats or the Republicans.

But most knowledgeable people agreed that to compare the Western scenario with our society is akin to comparing apples with oranges. Given the threat of revenge in case of open support for a political party that fails it into the corridors of power, stockbrokers and most businessmen pretend to remain dovish.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 16th, 2017