A collapsing system
12
THE gods of fate have a wicked sense of humor. When they want to destroy someone, they make their dreams come true but soon turn them into nightmares. This is now happening to those who have long shaped Pakistan’s destiny. The political system devised in 2018 is collapsing, with failing governance, rising dissent and court verdicts against them.
The elite political bargain that has long ruled Pakistan to marginalise its masses has included three state actors (military, judiciary and bureaucracy) and three societal ones (business, the landed elites and the professional middle class). The lords of the system have ruled directly for long periods, giving superficial economic and political progress but prolonged violence. They have controlled governance covertly even in between via civilian facades.
Elite ruling systems aim to maximise elite wealth and keep masses docile. But they go through cycles. Direct rule by the lords maximises elite wealth but increases societal dissent among excluded elites and masses. The system then reincorporates excluded business and landed elites who control masses via patronage. But as the cost of sharing increases and dissent decreases, political elites are expelled by the lords. The Musharraf era saw system contraction, followed by the 2008-18 era of reincorporation of political elites and then system re-contraction.
Huge stresses have often toppled elite systems globally.
This current contraction has been along three axes. The first is ethnic which started in 2008. After the ’71 debacle caused by exclusion of Bengalis, space was given to other ethnicities even though Punjab now had an electoral majority. The PPP often got a majority from the smaller provinces and south Punjab under a non-Punjab prime minister. This outcome is now unlikely and all elected prime ministers since 2008 have been from Punjab, as have been army chiefs. The two biggest parties and their senior leader are mostly from Punjab. Both parties are also conservative. Thus, the second axis of exclusion has been ideological.
The third axis is class-based. The military, judiciary, bureaucracy and private middle classes have long bristled at the brashly crude ways of business and landed elites. But it appears that they still had to be periodically included given their control of the masses via patronage politics.
In 2018, middle-class minds devised a plan to finally eject them through an allegedly rigged majority for the middle-class-led PTI. The gods of fate granted the dreams of the lords of fate. Conservative middle-class Punjab triumphantly took over the reins. But 15 months later, the gods have trumped the lords. Several factors led to this dizzying descent. The first was the severe inadequacy of much-trumpeted middle-class techno-managerial capacities and honesty to deliver on the hugely complex political task of national governance.
Secondly, the controversial methods involved delivering scores of traditional electables to the PTI to attain a majority. Thus, the PTI is the first party which must satisfy both the woolly demands of the middle class to eradicate sleaze and dynastic politics instantly and the demand of electables to retain them.
Thirdly, with traditional elites out, the lords now stand out. Their ways, which dwarf the visible crudeness of excluded elites in overall resource extraction, are now bothering the rule-based judiciary. All this is unraveling the middle-class coalition.
External factors have not helped. The US seems finally out as a generous cash-rich patron, and attempts to replace it with cunning China have failed. In desperation, the state has turned to imploring traditional elites to pay taxes to deal with financial stress. But such pleas have fallen on deaf ears. The win of the bellicose BJP has elevated national security pressures. Internal dissent is increasing not only in the marginalised southern provinces but even in KP against Punjab hegemony, and Punjab itself at the ejection of the PML-N. Economic turmoil is stressing people hugely while state political and social policing is contributing to further ire.
Such huge stresses have often toppled elite systems and their leaders globally, eg in South Africa. However, the severe weaknesses of Pakistani civil society and political opposition mean that this historical chance to topple those operating as system masters will be missed. Thus, radical outcomes like an egalitarian system serving the masses or even one under traditional politicians with civilian supremacy are unlikely. The basic options are the incompetent civilian allies somehow being dragged to the finishing line or traditional politicians being reluctantly co-opted via fair polls, recognising that they are better suited to ruling Pakistan than overzealous middle-class warriors.
The writer is a senior fellow with UC Berkeley and heads INSPIRING Pakistan, a progressive policy unit.
Twitter: @NiazMurtaza2
Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2019
