The writer is a partner at Bhandari, Naqvi & Riaz and an advocate of the Supreme Court. He can be reached on Twitter @laalshah
Dear Bilawal,
Congratulations on the Sindh Festival. Yes, there were some hiccups. But the fact remains that the PPP, under what appears to be your guidance, took a positive step. Music and art are always important but never more so in these dark days.
My point today is simple: no matter how many festivals you have, the PPP cannot return to national power before the next set of elections. Those elections are at least three years away. And when they come, the undecideds will vote for you based on two things: what the PPP has done during that three-year period, and what the PPP can offer for the future.
During the PPP’s last stint in power, your party’s record left, in polite terms, much to be desired. I remember in the run-up to the 2013 elections asking a well-informed jiyala if he could name one large-scale infrastructure project to the credit of the PPP. And he was silent. Yes, I know about the BISP and yes, it probably was a good thing. But if all you have to show for five years in power is one good idea, then you need to redefine your concept of ‘good governance’.
In any event, enough about the past. The purpose of this letter is not to berate you or your party for what happened earlier. Given the 2013 election results, you guys should have already figured out that you messed up. Instead, the purpose of this letter is first to get you to ask, what next? And second, to try and give you some answers.
In terms of relevance, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that so far as the political arena is concerned, there is no shortage of political space available. The currently dominant political party (i.e., the PML-N) has always pitched itself as a right of centre party. More importantly, the new entrant in Pakistani politics has chosen to attack the PML-N from the right, leaving the N-League with little option but to tack in that direction to prevent voters from being enticed by the PTI. And just as the rise of the Tea Party in the US has dragged the Republicans off into loony land, the rise of the PTI brigade has forced the Nawaz League to campaign as if the only votes which matter are those in Akora Khattak. The end result is that there is ample room for a centrist or left of centre party to present itself to the public as a reasonable and sensible alternative.
The bad news is that while there is plenty of political space for the PPP to exploit, the days of martyrdom-based campaigning are over. Speaking for myself, it all leaves me cold. Talk to me when you have a plan. Talk to me when you can convince me you can govern. Talk to me when you have policies to back up your slogans.
In most instances, what I have just said wouldn’t count as bad news: it would just be a fact of life. Pakistan, however, is different. Let me therefore spell it out. If you want people to vote for you because of your mother and your grandfather, the odds are against you.
First, most of Pakistan is now aged 25 or less — and the average age is only getting younger. If the next elections are held in 2018, almost all of your voters will have no memory of ZAB and very few will have memories of BB. I’m not saying the charisma card is useless. I’m just saying you must bring more to the table.
Second, Pakistanis have discovered that competence counts. Yes, the Sharifs play footsie with militants. But they also build roads and mass transit systems. And guess what, that was enough to get them a majority of the National Assembly in the last elections. So, if the PPP wants people to vote for them, they need to have credible evidence that they are now serious about governing.
Your problem is that I see no such evidence. Look at the way the PPP has run Sindh since May 2013. Now extend that undistinguished record another four years into the future. Unless you do something, that is what you will be running on. And that is what the PPP will be judged on.
To repeat, you have at least four years till the next election. At that time, you will need to show both a track record of good governance as well as a plan for what you will do if restored to power. As for plans, please note that I am not just talking about a manifesto. I’m talking about building an in-house technocratic arm staffed by people who actually care about policy and who can deliver when the time comes. Note, you can’t do this after getting elected. Nobody has time to think after they get power. You have to do your thinking now. You have to get your people ready now. And most importantly, you need to start caring about policies now.
This is not rocket science: this is what parties out of power do. Please understand that this is no longer the country in which your mother and your grandfather campaigned. We have an independent media now and the voters are more sophisticated. Slogans without substance are not going to cut it. At least, not anymore.
I’m not trying to be rude here, just stating a fact. If you want to be taken seriously, start by taking your responsibilities seriously. Give the voters respect and you will get respect back. Take them for granted and the loss will be yours.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 17th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (46)
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If things don't work out for Junior, there's always the ready-to-exploit real-estate market in Dubai owned by the family, built with the spoils of the many 10%'s earned and invested from Pakistan's public coffers.
Excellent proposition, only if someone can help read this out to the young inheriting a dying dynasty. Now, back to the art of preserving Global, I mean Sindhi heritage in the hopes of winning some votes up north. Nice day to paint.
small elitist liberals and mullah extremists are both disillusioned
@Narejo: during the reign of this "only hope for the country" from 2008 to 2013 country's debt rose from Rs. 6000 billion to Rs. 14000 billion. Could you please ask the masters of the "only hope for this country" to kindly let us know where did the Rs. 8000 billion go as the country turned into a china shop run over by intoxicated bulls
PPP is the only hope for the country.
Politics should not be a family business. If this little kid really cared about Pakistan then he should not go into politics. He should build schools, hospitals, do non profit type work and after 20 years of doing good work and building some credibility and political good will then he should think about going into politics when he is 45-50 years of age. He needs to get married have kids and gets some perspective. I doubt he has ever had to worry about where he is going to find his next meal. Something a lot of Pakistanis worry about every day.
If PPP want to be alive in political arena of Pakistan, they have to demonstrate some tangible outstanding performance in Sindh where PPP is a ruling party. PPP performance in Sindh can be taken as a flag ship and the message can be conveyed to the people of Pakistan that PPP can think above of martyrdom politics. Following are the area of performance: • Improve Law and order situation in Karachi • Convert some city like of Nawabshah, Larkana or Liyari into a model city. • Built the sound infrastructure within the Sindh and make it compatible with Lahore. • Conduct local bodies election as soon as possible and give adequate power to representative of local bodies. • Improve Education system.
The above are the some of area where improvement can rolled out, but only relying on the politics of martyrdom and giving statement on twitter will not work in the long run. Poor people of Sindh need immediate attention by the PPP govt who do not have any idea about the festival where million of Rupees splashed out without any ostensible reason. In Paksitan , there is no left or right politics, the only politics which can work is to make available the basic needs of the people i.e Rotee, Kapra aur Makan and PPP has abundantly fail to deliver during his last stint .
PTI is well deserving party and public is realizing it. it was bad decision to vote PMLN
Bilawal is the only hope for Sindh. But need to be improve PPP's performance.
"Yes, I know about the BISP and yes, it probably was a good thing. "
Plzzzzz. Do you think BISP is a big infrastructure project, and good as well ???
Well played PPP, this article and its responses show that the advertising campaign of the so called "saiyeen" aimed to only introduce him to the politics of Pakistan and the educated class, has remained effective.
Its a well-written article but I slightly disagree with the writer, PPP's vote bank at least as far as Sindh is concerned remains very intact, "Vote tow bibi/PPP ka haqq hai"
God forbid, if PML-N and PTI fail, it will be PPP to loot this country again. PPP's success lies in keeping the masses in Sindh uneducated.
Recently, I had an experience of a road trip between Karachi-Islamabad. Punjab is a different place all together because the roads, the system, the schools and over-all development is way better.
Some very sound advice here Feisal Naqvi Sahib. I hope he listens!
Naeem Khan Manhattan KS please post your email address. It has been too long since the
old PPP days in Kansas...
Leave billy boy alone, its already daunting for him to be center stage..bicharey kay wonder years gone so soon
Well written piece of advice. One should expect fresh ideas from a young leader like Bilawal Bhutto.But problem with old and established political parties is status qou, which leaves very little room for the fresh idea. First challenge for Mr. Bilawal will be creation of space for new ideas and new people. Second, If people's party intends to come to power which surely it does, then it has to reinvent itself as party of fresh ideas and only ideas are not good enough ideas are to be duly supported with prove track record. Bilawal has Sindh to prove his mettle and Sindh's Education, Health, Local Government and Infrastructure are begging for attention.
All hopes from the baby, including this article, are as empty as the baby's expression-less speeches. Pity that the leftists are cornering PPP to the extreme left where they themselves get confused. For the sake of the country, and of its masses, the PPP should come closer to the co-called center otherwise its narrative will sound more obsolete in post-WOT scenario.
well written !
A very pragmatic Op Ed by ET. If only Bilawal is reading it with open mind. In the last few elections PPP has gotten votes not because there was vacuum and other parties were worse. In fact most other parties are still rightwing extremists sitting in TTP lap. What Bilawal needs to do is first go to all the old PPP members who have been sidelined and ignored. They are the assets and voters of PPP not the opportunist lotas. In the long run PPP has to rule Sindh with MQM and make it an exploratory place to live. The time of faithful following is over now voters ask what have you done for me?
For me, there is no issue of left or right. Such issues get importance in developed countries. For us, the issues are, and in this priority. Rule of law, Education, Corruption, Governance, Power generation, etc. Traditional politics should be replaced with performance based politics if we want to survive.
You say PPP should focus on making policies while it is out of power. But is that true? T is ruling over Sind is it not? Just as PML-N proved their worth by their performance i Punjab province, PPP has the opportunity to show its overnance in Sind - just as PTI has the opportunity in KPK. After all a lot of the funds have been devolved to ghe provinces and now more than ever the provinces have an opportunity to nake a big difference to the lives of the people.
Having said. Ghis, ou failed to ive him credit for being the one person who unambiguously speaks out against the daily killings by TTP even as PML-N and PTI fall over each other regarding muzakarat.
@Ahmad S Moinuddin: Dude, you hit the nail.
regards,
Bilawal needs to be DOING something rather than tweeting and making fiery speeches extremist (ah the irony that there was no action on the part f the PPP during their five year term but now they lambast pml-n and pti, so much for the leftist party, its just a slogan to gain weights). And to show that he is truly serious and means business, he needs to shed the self imposed 'bhutto' after his name, he is a zardari and he should accept him and bid farewell to the ghosts of bhuttos to gain weights and emotionally manipulate people. Let him call himself Bilawal Zardari and then let's see how much support he gets from even rural sindh.
BBZ has charisma, vision and talent. All he needs to get rid of all those coteries who are power hungry and they are luring him just to get power for themselves. Many won elections on PPP's manifesto and BB shaheed's name, but once in power, they remain away from masses, they are blamed to be involved in nepotism, vision and policy less projects and corruption, thus good governance remains dream in Sindh. Check education, health, law & order, industry, tourism, roads, and highways, all are in deep mess. As per UNDP HDI index, except few districts of Sindh, all lack even basic facilities. BBZ needs to reach at grass root level, he needs at first to get realistic feel present at grass root level. Dont listen and rely on coteries who will say "Sain, All is well". Sindh needs serious reform in governance and delivery. You are Govt in Sindh, make it happen. Dont disappoint this time. Good luck!
And what this letter was about?
Bilawal, Your teachers at Oxford may give you more practical advices than the feudal ring members. The former want to make a better world by education, the later want more slaves for their lands/factories and political campaigns.
Sindh festival and talk against Taliban are commendable. However, can you get passed a resolution against blasphemy laws in Sindh assembly? Can you promise and prove the equal treatment of Muslims and minorities? Can you fix Karachi's conditions? Your party has the control of biggest city of Pakistan. If you can't control the city, how would you run the country?
I don't think you are being rude here, you are stating the facts as they are, I did LOL, about the following "And just as the rise of the Tea Party in the US has dragged the Republicans off into loony land." How true and by the way the speaker of the house is already going around them, yeah, we have a few loonies from Kansas too. Coming back to Bilawal, he seems to be emulating his grand father in gestures and demeanor, but it will not work any more. You should have also reminded him that there was sympathy vote after BB was assassinated otherwise they would have had no government at all. Bilawal's rhetoric in the Jalsas remind me of the late governor of Texas, Ann Richards, who said about George Bush during a campaign ," poor George who was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Well. this statement also fits perfectly to Bilawal.
Yet to see Baby Bhutto come up and say anything that is not scripted by handlers. There is no spontaneity, glibness, or a sharp mind. Will fail miserably if on a talk show among peers. Words from him, sounds like pablum. Moribund. Queasy. Rest assured the spectres of Mohtarma and the grandfather will be invoked. The tough hurdles are Mohtarma's $1.5 billion and Mr. 10% coffers,.[.still counting.] However, these dubious ancestral distinctions, accomplishments can be considered esteemed badges. Perhaps, true marks of heredity, and lineage, in the skewed politics of this country.
Sounds like Feisal Naqvi is desperately casting about for someone to fill his favorite centrist or left-of-center political space. But asking the PPP to rise to the job is a fool's errand. Pleading with them to ditch their politics of incompetent state-funded patronage and sloganeering is like asking a tiger to change his stripes. The PPP cannot deliver in the way the writer wants unless it changes its fundamental philosophy and structure as a party. There's no sign of that reorganization taking place even with Bilawal becoming increasingly active. Lets focus instead on making sure the party we have in power for the next five years- the N League- stops playing footsie with the militants and remains focused on delivering on economic progress and law and order. One way to do that would be to continue to discredit Imran Khan's mainstreaming of religious hate.
Mr. Naqvi, I must say, a very well written piece I have read in a long time. I agree to the last word in the letter. Peace.
@ author this is pakistan, there is no such thing as left right or centre. there is only one ideology that all these parties have that they all share: to grab power through any means possible and then to rape and pillage this country as much as they possibly can.
.......but elections can be bought and for little Bilawal and the PPP-Z money really is not a problem. Just a thought.
May be I am little newbie in commenting ... you suggestions are valid in a very idealistic pakistani elections. But where you have rigging powered elections, where nadra dept make themselves blind and dead ... he will always get some seats with no work in hand and enjoy his twitter hobby as now.
Brilliantly written as always. The problem is that even if it did absolutely nothing whatsoever even four years from now, PPP can still be guaranteed a blindly patriotic vote bank in the vast majority of seats from rural Sindh, and the PPP leadership's attitude suggests that it has resigned itself to the fact that their days as a national party are now over. As far as the PPP is concerned, the Bhutto name alone gets them enough unquestioned votes to make them the third-largest party in the country and a frontrunner for the opposition, so why fix what ain't broke.
Feisal Naqvi seems to be replacing Nadeem F Paracha (whose jiyala past means that he has to mince words when it comes to PPP) as my English-language-daily columnist of choice.
PTI is a true political superpower under the sincere guidance of Imran Khan. He is the choice of sincere and patriotic Pakistanis, not all these corruption loving Pakistanis that baby Bhutto wants support from. Pakistanis must accept the right of Imran Khan to lead the nation as everyone deserves a chance. Believe in change please!
If only open letters mattered. PPP - like the Congress in India, will keep the young "Bhutto" (minus Zardari) at the center. The party will be captive to him and vice versa. It serves the interests of the party sycophants well. They will milk his name to riches. The industrial middle class is not large enough to vote on issues. The votes are still with the poor and in the towns and villages of Pakistan. They tend to be emotional and susceptible to patronage politics.
Good advise is seldom welcomed and effective with Bhuttos and PPP.
Sane arguments. We'll written article!
There is a lesson in your own letter, Mr Naqvi. The boy lives in the hub of political power, surrounded by those who want to be in power, yet can only rely on those who are dead to get them into power. The same would be the case with the current ruling party by 2018, if they choose to do the same, for as you mentioned things are changing in Pakistan. One or two projects wont do. The situation is dire and once the terrorism thing is settled, everyone will wake up from a slumber and realise what just happened and how as a society they were raped. So not only does he need to grow up, he need to be on super charged hormones to get there. Aseefa seems more composed at that and may be a better alternative tomorrow, to play the mother card, than the grand father card.
Alas i believe the Indian Subcontinent does share history and traditions, and if PTI can't transform itself into a party of HIGHEST STANDARDS, an Aam Admi Party may be in the wings...