analysis: Give the parties a break!
Mariam Mufti
Yes, the media needs to be critical, but instead of being confrontational with the political parties it needs to provide friendly and constructive criticism so that parties can actually benefit from the political analysis
Political parties in Pakistan have not inspired trust in the citizenry that elects them. They have not mobilised the masses on the basis of ideology or policy programmes and when in government, their poor performance has led people to be critical of their inefficiency. Political parties must be accountable on the following five counts.
First, parties are first and foremost a coalition of groups whose primary rationale is to capture and hold on to the organs of government by putting up candidates for political offices, mobilise voters to elect them and hold elected members accountable for their performance. In Pakistan, the first political party, the All India Muslim League, was created not to hold on to the organs of government but on nationalist principles: to demand a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. This party was unable to translate itself from a nationalist movement to a national party that could pilot the country towards political stability. The lack of elections immediately after independence — except for the one provincial election during 1947-1958 — meant that there was no pressure on parties to organise, offer meaningful programmes or interact with voters.
Second, power is usually sought for patronage but parties are also supposed to serve as policy programmes, usually founded on ideological assumptions that purport to benefit the community as a whole. The formation of political parties has served to pool resources and permit individual politicians to appeal to electorates more efficiently. Hence as Dr Waseem rightly observes, parties have served to “aggregate potential winners and not potential interests”. Elections have, therefore, been more about the provision of incentives and distribution of patronage and less about issues or taking principled ideological stands that emerge out of consensus-building activity among state and societal actors.
Third, parties are not meant to be transient organisations whose existence is tied to the destiny of a single individual, or to the life span of a founding generation. Among all the political parties that have emerged in Pakistan, few have enjoyed any long-term success. It seems that the success of parties is dependent on the charisma of the leaders who are strongly entrenched: PPP and Bhutto, PML and Nawaz Sharif, and MQM and Altaf Hussain. These parties have been vulnerable to factionalism and in-fighting and have splintered several times over the years into opposing factions: MQM(a), MQM(h); PPP and PPPP; PML into PMLN, PMLQ etc.
Fourth, parties are meant to act as mass organisations, with membership readily available to all citizens. In Pakistan’s case political parties, apart from PPP and PML, do not operate as mass parties, such as the MQM and ANP which act as ethnic parties.
Finally, as mass organisations political parties are meant to serve as a two-way communication channel, processing the demands and interests of a population upward, and simultaneously passing downward to the people a better understanding of the constraints and requirements of the polity. In Pakistan, parties have made themselves available for cooptation by the bureaucratic-military axis. Parties have learnt that they don’t have to serve as a channel because cooptation by a military ruler is an easy shortcut for acquiring power.
But in the spirit of being objective, I also want to defend the parties. We tend to neglect the resilience of political parties in the face of persecution. Pakistan is an interesting country because despite the barriers set upon the democratic process, electoral dynamics, election-related activities and political parties have continued to be meaningful.
In the past, military rulers in Pakistan, seeking legitimacy as the guardians of democracy, condemned political parties as ill organised, ineffective and incapable of maintaining political stability. Yet, the military-bureaucratic oligarchy that has retained control of the Pakistani state directly or indirectly since independence has not been able to do away with political parties and has been compelled to coerce, co-opt them or cooperate with them. Despite the efforts of the Musharraf government to limit the role of political parties, the latter continued to attract public support. The Musharraf government was also been unsuccessful in preventing the PPP and PMLN emerging as strong opposition parties or “de-linking” the parties from their political leaders even though they were in exile.
It has taken the PPP and PMLN a month to overcome their differences and agree to form a coalition government with Yousaf Raza Gillani as the prime minister, so let us give the parties a break. Let’s overcome our misgivings about political parties and their past performance and give them the benefit of the doubt. So far, the political parties have managed to do some things right, so let’s give them credit where it is due.
First, both the PPP and PMLN have agreed to cooperate with one another and form a coalition. Inadvertently, they have also made a commitment to not undercut the other’s influence by appealing to the military. The ANP and MQM, two ethic-based regional parties, have also come on board this coalition making the present government the most representative government Pakistan has had.
Second, the PPP has a policy programme in mind, the highlights of which include eradicating terrorism as the top-most priority, and providing relief in the energy sector. The new government has also taken the decision to increase minimum wage, dissolve NAB and reinstate the trade and student unions. These were encouraging first moves made by the government.
Third, political leadership is proving to have matured. Gillani is not a Bhutto and is also not the head of the party. This is a sign that politicians are open to making some differentiation between a party in government and party organisation. This will prove to be beneficial for decision-making within the party ranks, encourage internal debate and reform.
Fourth, members of the new government have attained public office through democratic elections and they have an opportunity to serve as a two-way channel, processing the demands of both state and society.
All this is very well, but civil society also has a significant role to play. Political parties get a lot of bad press and earlier in the article I have explained at length why this criticism has been justified.
However, since the election most of the coverage on political parties in the press has been pessimistic and has predominantly analysed the reasons why the newly formed government will not last. Yes, the media needs to be critical, but instead of being confrontational with the political parties it needs to provide friendly and constructive criticism so that parties can actually benefit from the political analysis that appears in print and electronic media.
The educated civil society also needs to play a role. Admittedly mainstream politics is dirty business and one would rather watch from a distance rather than join in. The lawyers’ movement and the students’ movement were refreshing in their zealous demand for change.
Let’s not watch from a distance. This time round, why not actually participate?
Mariam Mufti is currently working on her doctoral dissertation on the party system of Pakistan at the Johns Hopkins University
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