By Rifaat Hamid Ghani
Jail him; hang him; disqualify him — until disqualified by its vote-bank the party’s leader remains the party leader. Such has been Pakistan’s political experience. And the shifting parliamentary reps – whosoever’s hand they may be moving into or letting go of – retain their individual personal weight: A gold standard electable has his own constituency and carries it as personal baggage. Such is the feudal and religious tradition.
Add to this sociopolitical context the magnetizing power of the corporate and digital worlds. Money and glamour have electoral leverage to lure or disenchant — especially today’s media-minded and often jobless vulnerable youth — And bear in mind that youth outnumbers as well as discounts yester-year’s sages.
But is it true as currently oft-asserted that all of that is less than secondary if the army or the judiciary put one or the other or both feet down? Are they really that effective at devising the politicians’ playing field? Levelling it; bunkering it; or crafting it for a birdie? Is that not finally more within the election commission’s remit provided it lacks the courage and conviction of neutrality? And what if the army and the judiciary are played off against each other? Truly skilful electables could help do that; hand in glove under the table with realtors, media barons, and enterprising speculators. It seems almost any or every factor can mar the forthcoming National Elections, presently scheduled for February 8th, 2023 — and that includes the attitude of contesting political parties: If you can’t win spoil it for everyone. Propositions are afoot refloating systemic changes such as a presidential system and proportional representation. The basic argument is that universal adult franchise is not the way to functional democratic sovereignty in poorly educated post-colonial third world countries like ours.
Was it Musharraf or Zia who brought in the formal graduate qualification as a must for parliamentary aspiration and sought to tweak the years adding up to universal adult franchise? Dictators tend to think alike or have similar civic needs. What was levelled or tilted by that
ploughing of the field? What was handicapped: the Ashrafiya and the babu mentality or the haris and mazdoors? Most Pakistanis are lucky to get to even the non-common colonial/indigenous schools and colleges. Do they become objects rather the participants in the national political process?
Despite all this, the common citizens’ abstinence or rejection of the pre-electoral process and its declared results is the true determinant of acceptable political direction. Recall the PNA; the IJI; the PDM. Though we may attribute the success of those movements to what we now are calling the establishment’s facilitation, the establishment cannot pull it off without the numbers in the street. So: How pliable are we to pressure and propaganda pre and post the February 8th, 2024 exercise? Is the bulk, presently silent and waiting to speak through the ballot, incorrigibly independent-minded?
Which is another reason why May 9th becomes the crucial touchstone in electoral choice.
Civic disruption on May 9th 2022 was more than a direct slap in the face to the Armed Forces identity and dignity and its political dislikes and promotional support or official negation of a political party. Mayhem on the streets and mobs run amok that day were also a danger to the life, property and freedom of the common citizen, in Lahore first and foremost and other major cities in the country. It is true that a mob has its own momentum and an autonomy. But the incitement to paralyze or overpower civil authority and degrade the military was not a spontaneous overflow. It was urged. What does it suggest if citizens turn upon their country’s internal and external defence system and its management? Does May 9th endorse PTI claims that external elements in connivance with internal political elements that are ready to accept a surrender of sovereignty orchestrated its exit?
A higher high-class education and cosmopolitan background sometimes facilitate a political perspective so wide that the narrower national priority can slip through the net. Yet, the Oxbridge seasoned Bhuttos; Quaid-i-Azam himself; and some of our most distinguished and pragmatically focused leftist intellectuals have all been among such privileged persons and come home and served the common herd. That may or not be true of the comparatively new breed of Expats, most of whom stay away eking out a living or luxuriating in dual nationalities. Some
recent entrants and highly focused legislation have given a whole new dimension to the non-resident citizens’ scope to strutting on and defining the national political stage. But affecting common perception most of all electorally speaking is the variable factional nitty-gritty of ‘Islamisation’ that can sear hearts minds and bodies.
Faith is a powerful political weapon in both attack and defence. It is wielded globally in Islamophobia and in Talibanized empathy. Pakistan is almost inextricably affected both by the inconsistencies of superpower intrusions and withdrawals; and its own power orientations in Afghanistan’s see-sawing civil strife. Zealots and superpower antipathies and design cannot be wished away. So a weakening of popular identification with the soldier, along with civic unrest and economic dependence, can well be a desired end by external and internal elements wishing to pull Pakistan’s international sympathies one way or the other. Voters will have to make up their minds about which foreign policy political choices are closest to the way they would like to see their country’s government make. That and not the immediate induction of affordable food and medicare and schooling is what is really on the minds of Pakistanis. No party has really tackled answering this question. They are ever-ready to ascribe narratives to others but shrink from declaring their own.