How democracy survives

The PPP government in Islamabad, surviving with a thin uncertain majority in the National Assembly, seems to have made a deal with the PML-Q so that it will not have a problem when it is required to show a majority when the 2011-2012 budget will be presented in parliament for a vote. The PML-Q needs a political reprieve, so to speak, if it is to pose a decent challenge to the PML-N. The latter has already managed to make inroads into the PML-Q ranks in the Punjab Assembly, with several MPAs now supporting the PML-N-led provincial government.

The label put on the ‘deal’ — which will give the PML-Q half a dozen ministries at the centre and important slots in the provinces — is that of national reconciliation. So far, this strategy has not worked well for various reasons, many of them emanating from genetic rivalries embedded in the political parties’ thinking. The PPP lost the PML-N as its ally, and has gone on to lose the JUI-F and the MQM too, one completely out, the other out of the cabinet. The big challenge comes from the PML-N, with the second largest bloc of votes in parliament, and from the alliances forming out of parliament among political minnows aspiring to an inspired ‘revolution’.

The ‘deal’ may have many pitfalls in the days to come. The PML-Q is not as monolithic as it was under Musharraf and has memories that still haunt. The Chaudhrys who run it were born as a political faction in rivalry with the original PPP, their family head killed in an ambush blamed on the PPP. After 2008, the PPP called the PML-Q a ‘killer party’ because a letter written by Benazir Bhutto had named one member of the Chaudhry clan as her possible assassin. In Punjab, the party is greatly lured by the charms of the PML-N, which was once the parent party of many who later walked behind the Chaudhrys. It has at least three factions and the PPP-PML-Q ‘reconciliation’ will be haunted in the coming days by clashes within the PML-Q over how to interpret the politics of President Asif Ali Zardari.

The other side of the picture is mostly linked to the shape of politics in Punjab. The PML-Q is faced with gradual demise in the face of the PML-N’s dominance. Its attempts at restoring the party or reuniting all the various PML factions have been ignored by Nawaz Sharif.

The PML-Q base in the Punjab Assembly has eroded through floor-crossing or lota politics, while its residual power in local governments is glowing weakly, as Lahore gets ready to replace the old incumbents who think they were unfairly ousted from their offices. If the Chaudhrys cohabit with the PPP, they will have a chance to shore up their declining support in Punjab and also console the local bodies candidates not yet snagged by the PML-N. But will the Chaudhrys be able to persuade all the factions to rejoin? That is a tough question to answer.

The alliance will appeal to the visceral politician whose nose for power is always keen. But, in actual fact, it is democracy playing itself out, averting sudden rupture to maintain continuity. Out in the field, there are parties who boycotted the 2008 elections but are now willing to join the MQM and the JUI-F to present an ‘alternative’ to the big parties and to break the bipartisan system run by the PPP and the PML-N, which the establishment no longer favours. There is talk of another Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, put together by the ISI in the post-Zia period to break the hold of the PPP on the political system. The PPP is aware of this possible development; the PML-N is beginning to realise that it could face marginalisation at the hands of the establishment.

The PPP in its weakness has given us some very important constitutional amendments; its administrative debility has enabled the judiciary to compel it to remain within the legal bounds of the Constitution. Its survival in power is a lesson in democracy and its various ways of self-preservation.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2011.