IF our most recent experience with military rule proves anything, it is the irrelevance of our political parties. In four months, they have been unable to formulate a coherent policy on how to deal with the present situation.
Our two mainstream parties, the Pakistan People's Party and the Muslim League, are specially hamstrung by virtue of having ruled twice each in the last decade, and are hence the targets of concerted military accountability. As their leaders are facing legal action, the parties are hostage to their fate. And this personality cult is precisely the problem with politics in Pakistan: leaders centralize all authority and decision-making to such an extent that party structures - such as they are - are paralyzed into inaction when the top leadership is immobilized. Deliberately, a second tier is not encouraged to emerge.
Of course the nature of the two parties is very different, although they may find themselves in a similar quandary at present. The Muslim League in all its many manifestations has traditionally been a handmaiden of the establishment. Even when it was in opposition to the PPP in the latter's brief stints in power in the last decade or so, the PML had the barely concealed support of the powers that truly matter in our context. By now, the cash handed over to top PML leaders by the ISI is well-documented; even the then army chief, Aslam Beg, has admitted to dishing out large sums to ensure electoral victory for the PML in 1990.
If we trace the history of this party in the post-partition period, we find that in one form or another, it has been revived by authoritarian regimes to provide a fig-leaf of respectability for them. It has split again and again as every second homeless politician has used its name to gain public attention. It became a genuinely popular party for the first time under Nawaz Sharif, but then too, it had no tradition of resisting authority. The ex-PM, a past master at 'briefcase politics', had pockets large enough to buy key figures in the establishment without feeling the need to use political means. Indeed, as a protege of the military, Nawaz Sharif is unaccustomed to the rough and tumble of agitational politics.
The PPP, on the other hand, was born as an opposition party, and although its leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, strove for accommodation with the military, General Yahya and his henchmen kept him at arm's length. They were clearly unhappy with the PPP's electoral success in West Pakistan in 1970 as they had expected the resurrected Muslim League to perform far better than it actually did.
To its credit, the party provided Zia with the only meaningful opposition he faced during his long and baneful rule. And Benazir Bhutto was the undoubted leader of the opposition, a role she played with great distinction and personal courage. Given this history of refusing to knuckle under to authoritarian rule, it is sad to see this party now reduced to the odd statement condemning the desultory and highly selective accountability process we are witnessing. Benazir Bhutto is trying to orchestrate events from abroad, but clearly, the party is suffering from her absence. And as she has always discouraged the emergence of a strong second tier, the PPP is effectively leaderless. There was some talk of her apolitical sister, Sanam, coming to Pakistan to fly the Bhutto banner, but even the hordes of sycophants in the party may balk at this.
Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League, on the other hand, has been reduced to meetings in drawing rooms in Lahore and Islamabad in which nothing more than vague resolutions are passed. Meanwhile, it has been left to the ex-PM's wife, Begum Kulsoom Sharif, to make defiant statements against military rule. The famous 'heavy mandate' has been exposed as a fleeting fancy as Nawaz Sharif faces the maximum penalty and not a single significant demonstration in his support has been organized.
The ANP, nominally a left-wing, democratic party, has also been unable to formulate a clear strategy. It, too, is being run as a family fiefdom, and is stuck between its socialist agenda and its tribal roots. While it excels at wheeling and dealing to form provincial coalitions, its significance at the national level has dwindled. Indeed, it can hardly be called a national party any more.
The religious parties have traditionally been happy with undemocratic regimes as they have always been drubbed at the polls. Under the present dispensation, they are at par with the mainstream parties because now the size of a party depends not on parliamentary representation, but on the newspaper coverage they get. Also, apart from an initial public display of liberalism, General Musharraf has done and said nothing to disturb the reactionary agenda these parties have followed over the years.
The MQM, Pakistan's largest ethnic party, has been largely neutralized after the coup. Having antagonized all potential allies. Altaf Hussain had high hopes of the army, but is now sorely disappointed over the provincial administration's refusal to accord his party any special consideration. Hence his reported threat to launch an 'armed movement.' But given the MQM's internal divisions and its current state of disarray, it is doubtful whether any movement will in fact be launched.
Even under the decade of democracy that was ended last October, our political parties were largely disorganized and undisciplined groupings held together by personal ambitions and the leader's personal authority. Members were united more by common interest rather than a shared vision or ideology. Motivated mostly by greed and personal egos, they were quick to go to greener pastures whenever they thought it expedient. Party elections were seldom held in the mainstream parties, and potential challengers for leadership were never allowed to rise. This made them easy to manipulate and cow down.
This lack of organization, discipline, principles and common goals (except the burning desire to get into the corridors of power) has spread revulsion and contempt for the political class. This, in turn, makes it easy for the military to walk in at will with considerable public support. When General Musharraf seized power four months ago, he was widely seen as a saviour.
Clearly, much of the woes Pakistani politicians are currently facing are of their own making, and it is therefore hard to sympathize with them. Their arrogance and greed in power, and their refusal to cooperate with elected governments when they are in the opposition, have landed them (and the rest of us) in our present predicament. If there is little public sympathy for their plight, it is because they have not earned it. Until they do, they will continue swaying in the wind.