As a new general election (expected any time next year) approaches, possible electoral alliances have begun to take shape. In Pakistan, such alliances often emerge when the system throws up a political party with a huge vote bank and when it is believed that this party cannot be defeated (in an election) by a single opposing outfit. Ever since the late 1980s, many experts and observers have alleged that the ‘establishment’ is never comfortable with a single party enjoying a large vote bank and in a position to command an absolute majority in the parliament.

This rather widespread perception suggests that (ever since the 1988 election) the so-called establishment has regularly helped shape electoral alliances. It is believed by many that this is done so that the electorally strong party could at best form a coalition government, leaving enough space for non-electoral centres of power to influence the policy-making process.

The first major electoral alliance to be formed in Pakistan was the United Front (UF). It emerged in the former East Pakistan to challenge the electoral might of the ruling Muslim League (ML) which was a continuation of the pre-partition All-India Muslim League. The centrist ML had been the country’s largest party since Pakistan’s inception in 1947. It had the most members in Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly and within the provincial assemblies. The UF was formed a few months before the 1954 election for the East Pakistan Legislative Assembly. The UF’s largest component party was the Awami Muslim League (AML). The AML had emerged when a centre-left faction had broken away from the ML in 1949 to form the Jinnah Awami Muslim League. By 1954, this had become the AML, drawing much of its support in the Bengali-majority East Pakistan. Other component parties of the alliance were the centre-right Krishak Sramik Party; the moderate Nizam-i-Islam Party, and the left-wing Ganatantri Dal.

New electoral alliances are in the offing while old ones are being re-established. The history of such alliances is long

This alliance had largely emerged as a popular reaction against the ML’s ‘misrule’ in East Pakistan. The UF routed ML in the election, winning 223 seats out of a total 309. The ML could win just 10 seats. In the ’60s the AML would go on to become Awami League (AL), the leading Bengali nationalist party, and then after 1971, Bangladesh’s founding party.

The next major electoral alliance was formed in December 1964. It was called the Combined Opposition Parties (COP). It arose to oppose Ayub Khan’s second bid to become president through the 1965 presidential election. The Ayub regime, with its intense focus on large-scale industrialisation, pro-business policies and a ‘modernist’ disposition towards Islam, had incensed opposition groups, both on the left and the right. The COP included the centre-right Council Muslim League, the Islamic/right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the moderate right-wing Nizam-i-Islam Party and the Bengali nationalist Awami League. The left-wing National Awami Party and the COP chose Ms Fatima Jinnah, the reclusive sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as its presidential candidate.

Ayub won in almost every region of the country (gaining 64 percent of the vote in a controversial election). But Ms Jinnah was able to defeat him in Karachi (in West Pakistan) and in Dhaka and Chittagong in East Pakistan. Ayub was re-elected as president but resigned four years later in 1969.

Many authors writing on the 1970 election have more than alluded that the military regime led by Yahya Khan — who replaced Ayub — tried to get three main ML factions (Convention, Council and Qayyum) and some religious parties to challenge the PPP and the AL from a single electoral platform. But the initiative failed to take off. The AL and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won the majority of seats in the 1970 election.

Six years later in December 1976, nine parties formed an alliance to challenge the ruling PPP in the 1977 election. During his election campaign, Z.A. Bhutto as prime minister claimed that the alliance, the Pakistan Qaumi Ittihad had been formed and funded by industrialists and feudal lords who were feeling disgruntled by his regime’s ‘socialist policies’. The alliance included three right-wing religious parties, the JI, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and Jamiat Ulema-i- Pakistan (JUP); the centrist Tehreek-i-Istaqlal (TI), and the National Democratic Party (NDP). It also had two centre-right ML factions — Qayum and Functional — in its fold, and the centre-right Democratic Party. The tiny Communist Party was also included.

The alliance was routed in the election, but its leaders accused Bhutto of rigging. They then cornered him with a violent protest movement until he was toppled in a reactionary military coup in July 1977. The next major political alliance to crop up was the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). Formed in 1980, the alliance was enacted to force General Ziaul Haq to end martial law and hold fresh elections.

The MRD also planned to participate in a future election as an alliance. It was made up of the left-leaning PPP, the centrist NDP, the centrist TI, the communist Mazdoor Kissan Party and the right-wing JUI. The Pakhtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) joined in 1986. Even though MRD organised at least three major protest movements against Zia, it disbanded after Zia’s demise in 1988 and did not participate in that year’s election as an electoral alliance.

However, a brand new alliance emerged for the 1988 election, the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). It was led by the Pakistan Muslim League that had been revamped and reoriented by the Zia regime as an entirely right-wing outfit. The IJI also had a number of religious parties in its fold. As former chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), Gen Hamid Gul confessed on August 29, 2009, he was one of the main architects of the IJI. He said it was enacted to challenge the PPP which had been reinvigorated by Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir.

After winning the 1990 election, IJI disintegrated during the first Nawaz Sharif regime (1990-1993) when he formed his own ML faction — the Nawaz League. In 2002, religious parties from different Muslim sects and sub-sects came together to form the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). Some observers believe its formation was encouraged by the otherwise ‘liberal’ Musharraf dictatorship to boost these parties’ scattered electoral prospects and thus water down their anger against Musharraf’s alliance with the United States in the latter’s ‘war on terror.’

However, there are also those who insist that the MMA was simply an opportunistic alliance formed to capitalise on the anti-US sentiment in the country, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The MMA won the election in that province but by the 2008 election, the alliance had collapsed.

Efforts are once again underway to revive the MMA for the 2018 election. Many observers are again pointing the finger at the ‘establishment.’ They say that the MMA is being re-established to divert the conservative segment of Nawaz League’s vote bank. However, there is every possibility that the MMA is being formed by the mainstream religious parties to stem the erosion of votes which they fear they will suffer due to the emergence of the more militant religious parties, the Milli Muslim League and the Tehreek-i-Labaik. Their sudden appearance is being explained as part of the state’s controversial policy to supposedly neutralise militant groups by bringing them into the mainstream electoral process. Many question the wisdom behind this move.

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 19th, 2017