GUJRAT: Money, violence, heavyweight politicians, vendettas and enmities — the political plot in this northern Punjab district with a population of nearly three million is straight out of a pot-boiler.Home to the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, the Kairas, the Servis group of Ahmed Mukhtar and Ahmed Saeed fame, and the lone-ranger Ghazanfar Ali Gul, Gujrat is high-stakes, high-wattage politics.
And yet, politics here is rooted in the oldest of traditions: “In Gujrat it’s all about the dharra (local political groupings),” said Ghazanfar Gul, the PPP stalwart who habitually loses to perhaps the most formidable constituency politician in all of Punjab, Wajahat Hussain.
“The way it plays out is complex, but the formula of politics here is fairly simple: personality, clan, dharras, groupings, all powered by money and enmity,” according to Basharat Lodhi, a local journalist.
What looks like a division of spoils among the major political parties, then — Gujrat’s four MNAs belong to PPP (two), PML-N and PML-Q — is really about Jat vs Gujjar and Chaudhry vs anti-Chaudhry.
The personal and clan rivalries are intense and sometimes result in incongruous political alliances. In the 2008 elections, for example, Ahmed Mukhtar, the PPP federal defence minister, supported a PML-N candidate, a fellow Kashmiri, on a Punjab Assembly seat. “I just wanted to test my support in the city,” Ahmed Mukhtar deadpanned when asked about the arrangement.
Once the expediency of defeating the Chaudhrys was over, the support for the N-League was quickly withdrawn. “In the Kashmir elections, I put up a candidate against the PML-N,” Mukhtar declared.
An uncomfortable allianceWhat happens when parties align but personalities are at daggers drawn? Gujrat is set to find out.
In two National Assembly constituencies, the PPP and PML-Q candidates have bitterly opposed one another: Ghazanfar Gul vs Wajahat Hussain and Ahmed Mukhtar vs Shujaat Hussain.
As per the deal between the two parties, however, the winning candidates from the 2008 elections will be given first preference next time, which means Ghazanfar Gul may have to step down against hated rival Wajahat Hussain.
There is another aspect: “As president of the Q-League, Chaudhry Shujaat will be allowed to contest from NA-105, where he lost in 2008,” according to Muhammad Tufail, general secretary of the PML-Q in Gujrat. That would mean Ahmed Mukhtar stepping aside for Shujaat in a constituency where Kashmiri vs Jat and Chaudhry vs anti-Chaudhry defines politics.
Can Gul and Mukhtar afford to step aside and will they?
According to Ghazanfar Gul, “If I leave the election, I’ll be finished.” Sensing an opportunity the PML-N has been courting Gul, offering him both the resources and manpower to help take on the formidable Wajahat Hussain.
But Gul is a conflicted man, an old PPP hand who is deeply reluctant to leave the party and yet knows his party is unlikely to award him a ticket for the next election.President Zardari has offered Gul a Senate seat as a compromise, but Gul has dismissed the possibility. “I must contest the next election and I have conveyed this to the party leadership and that is where the matter lies at the moment,” Gul said.The Ahmed Mukhtar case is slightly different. “If the president asks, I don’t mind being sidelined,” said the soft-spoken Mukhtar, who is considered a close associate of President Zardari. “I’m 65, I’ll be 67 around the next election, I have a business that I can run.”
The complicating factor is Mukhtar’s rift with his brother, Ahmed Saeed, who is close to the Sharifs. If Ahmed Mukhtar is handed a Senate seat or simply bows out of NA-105, it seems likely Saeed or one of his sons will step up and carry the Kashmiri, anti-Chaudhry flag in Gujrat city.
Same family, same support base, different parties: if Mukhtar doesn’t contest the next election against Chaudhry Shujaat and his brother or his nephew does, a PPP victory could become a PML-N victory.
A party vote bank?The clutch of big-name PPP candidates in Gujrat can give the impression there is a sub-plot of national politics here: PPP vs PML and its various incarnations. But after perfunctorily acknowledging the role of the party, the candidates themselves are quick to dismiss its influence.
“There is no Muslim League vote bank, it is all the hard work of the candidates and their personal connections to the people,” Wajahat Hussain said.
“If you can’t see the PPP vote bank, then how can I?” Ahmed Mukhtar retorted when asked about the role of the party in the PPP.
“You need three Ms to do politics in Gujrat: money, mind and muscle,” said Muhammad Tufail, the Q-League district general secretary. “The party matters little.”
So it is with the Kairas of Lalamusa. “There are PPP voters here no doubt,” began Nadeem Kaira, a former tehsil nazim, “But you have to keep in mind that our family has worked hard to maintain its ties in this area and there is much personal support for us.”
In 2008, Qamar Zaman Kaira, a former federal minister, defeated a local rival, Syed Noorul Hassan Shah, on a PML-Q ticket by nearly 20,000 votes in a predominantly rural constituency. Shah’s reputation as a strongman had alienated the urban pockets in his constituency and the Kairas, who enjoyed a modestly cleaner reputation, capitalised on that as well as the withdrawal by Jamaat-i-Islami, which also has a vote base in the area.
But matters have moved on since 2008. The Kairas have also become embroiled in allegations of land-grabbing and violence.
In 2008, three policemen were killed following a shootout outside a disputed commercial property and Nadeem Kaira was one of several Kairas against whom a case was registered.
Meanwhile, Noor Shah has switched to the PML-N and may give the Kairas a tough fight, particularly if the JI cuts a deal with PML-N. Dr Tariq Salim, the district amir of JI, said: “Our preference would be an alignment with the PML-N, but we will have to wait and see what happens.”
For now, analysts familiar with Lalamusa’s politics suggest Qamar Zaman’s seat appears more secure than Tanvir Ashraf Kaira’s MPA seat, which he won by less than 2,000 votes in 2008. The key for a PML-N victory in Lalamusa would be to keep its MNA and MPA candidates in the constituency, presently locked in quintessentially biradiri and dharra battles, on the same page.
Thana-katcheri“Go around my constituency and you’ll see almost every second person is abroad,” said Wajahat Hussain. “People here don’t have rupees. They have euros and dollars.”
While Gujrat may be awash with cash and candidates may spend eye-popping sums on election campaigns, politics in the district is for the most, and almost universally in rural areas, about the thanna-katcheri and biradiri systems.
“Government College Lahore was my glorious stay,” Ghazanfar Gul explained. “My class fellows, seniors, juniors, everyone is in a position of high authority and they don’t refuse me. Besides every official and policeman knows me, knows I’m not corrupt and that I’m not a badmash (bad guy), and so can’t refuse to help.”
“It’s really about fear and protection,” said Basharat Lodhi, the local journalist. “People may get nothing else all their lives from their candidate, but there is security in knowing they have something to turn to if they need it someday.”
As for the biradiri system, Nusrat Javed, a veteran journalist and expert on Punjab politics, said: “People mistakenly think that development and urban life are making the biradiri factor less and less relevant. But it’s really not true. Rural definitely, and urban to a large extent, are plagued by the issue of biradirism.”
With politics in Gujrat still revolving around the twin influences of biradiri and thann-katcheri, the old guard look near impossible to dislodge.