Prince in the Parliament

The heir to the throne of the PPP is now inching closer to reclaiming the throne of the country

And so it is official. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will contest the by-polls, win, and sail into the Parliament. The heir to the throne of the Pakistan People’s Party is now inching closer to reclaiming the throne of the country.

Or not.

Perched atop the cheesy stage at the Bahria Town palace that stands tall as a testament to the eternal-cum-ephemeral friendship of beautiful minds, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari hurled the announcement of his electoral plans like a thunderbolt from Mount Olympus. The seat that he intends to contest from will be vacated by the incumbent to make way for the prince who will then go through the motions of being democratically elected. Garlanded with victory, he will make a grand entry into the National Assembly and perhaps take the seat being warmed for him by Khursheed Shah and once held by his mother while her nemesis — Nawaz Sharif — sat across the aisle on the Leader of the House seat. The more things change…



And yet this matter of representative princes, princesses and princelings is not as black and white as it sounds. Bilawal is a dynast. He’s not the only one. Dynasties dominate politics in many countries and are not considered an aberration as long as dynasts are voted in through a legitimate system. Yes the dynasts enjoy an advantage in politics like they do in many other professions. Does it help an army officer to become a general if his father was one? Perhaps it is a factor, but clearly not a decisive one. Does it help a banker rise up the corporate ladder if her mother was the CEO of a bank? The youngster will have the right connections and exposure, and clearly a high level of appropriate mentoring but it will not guarantee her rise to the top in the absence of a culture of nepotism. Advantage yes, decisive advantage no.

Bilawal will win the election hands down because the people will genuinely vote for him. He will very soon become the formal parliamentary leader of his party and a candidate for the top office once he attains the constitutional age. Heir-apparent, party co-chairperson, MNA, parliamentary leader — he will adorn all these titles and responsibilities not because he has worked his way up through sheer talent, grit and merit but because of the blood that runs through his veins. He may be the smartest, shrewdest and slickest young man this side of Suez, but that matters not in a system where blood reigns above all.



Bilawal’s rise is legal, but is it also moral? He was born into leadership but isn’t hereditary leadership passé? Old fashioned? Obsolete? Isn’t it the complete opposite of merit? Of equality? Of a level playing field for every child? If Bilawal’s rise seems right and sounds right as per the rules of electoral democracy, why does it not feel right?



He draws legitimacy from his voters and his party grandees, but they draw his legitimacy from his DNA. Is that wrong? Can legitimacy be reduced to a strict exclusionary definition? And if Bilawal’s voters, and his party members have no problems latching on to a DNA and converting it into political legitimacy that fulfills the requirements of parliamentary democracy, then clearly the problem is not with Bilawal or with his DNA — the problem is with the voters.

And so we return to the Trumpian tragedy that unfolded like a plague in the heart of liberal America — it was the voter that was at fault. Suddenly there is a deluge of literature in the United States talking about how democracy could be in danger with the ascension of Donald Trump as the new president. The voter is at fault for not being discriminating enough? Not being educated enough? Not being socially emancipated enough? If this be true, then the voters in Mirpur Mathelo and Michigan may not be as different as one would assume. And yet the voter in Michigan and Wisconsin preferred a wild card like Trump over a dynast like Clinton. Clearly the pull of DNA and bloodline — or the last name — was not enough for the voter to swing the other way. It is tempting to draw this analogy further but it does stop here because it would be a travesty — to say the least — if the US electoral system was compared to the one that we have here.

And yet here at home this system — and this voter — will accord legitimacy only to a Bhutto or a Sharif. In fact even though there is no visible dynasty in the PTI, without Imran Khan at the top the party is nothing more than a group of grandees clawing at each other’s throats. Only the Jamaat-e-Islami stands apart like a glorious exception but it has opted out of the mainstream thanks to its reactionary approach towards politics and life.

Can a system be legal and legitimate and yet stink? If this be so, the problem is graver than we may think. The sum of this parliamentary democracy is less than the total of its legitimate parts. The gap between the two represents a flashing red light for all of us who are complacent in the face of a receding threat of unconstitutional acts.

No this does not mean we may be tempting the generals once again. What it does mean is that unless this gap is filled through meaningful reform of the system, we are heading towards trouble. I am talking about reform that addresses this problem of dynasts controlling parties which control the system which in turn tightens its hold on a captive electorate. There is no level playing field in this political system. It is shutting out all those whose aspirations cannot gel with the DNAs and bloodlines of a select few; whose aims and dreams cannot materialise unless they are latched on to those with famous last names; whose desire to compete with the advantaged few will remain unfulfilled because they live in a land that continues to demand nourishment from the sagas of rajas and ranis.

With a prince in the parliament, is such a reform possible? No if we acquiesce to the inevitability of princedoms. Yes if the rest of us truly believe we have no other choice.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2016.

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