A bitter winnowing

There can now be no doubt that the 2018 general election is going to be unlike any other since independence. It is already unique in one respect — the second peaceful transfer of power — but it is happening in a political landscape that is (not) changing almost by the day and is certain to (not) change yet again by the time the polls open. The latest event to make the headlines is the announcement by eight legislators that they are to stand as independents and not under the banner of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. They say they have a single aim, the creation of a new province of South Punjab and that a mass movement is to be founded to further that ambition.

This is not the first time that this has been mooted; it had a run around the track at the last election but faded quickly. Today, with Nawaz Sharif at least symbolically removed from his leadership there are widening rifts. Old wounds have reopened, old grievances have been given new life and political churns can be contagious. Once they start in one party they can be mirrored in others. The MQM continues to lacerate itself, the religious parties have announced the resurrection of the MMA, the PPP is fading even in Sindh and there is at least one Big Guy rumoured to be seeking a new perch, possibly in an opposition party.

None of this is for the betterment of the country no matter what may be avowed — and Maryam Nawaz has been quick to dismiss the ship jumpers as irrelevant, they are not — and all of it is to do with the having and holding of political power. The political cadre of Pakistan is degraded and diluted, and recent moves are a shifting of ornaments on the shelf rather than any grass-rooted moves that have swathes of public support, support that translates into change and a reshaping of the political paradigm. When the winnowing is done the electorate, some of them, may think much has changed. The reality is that there will have been a swapping of masks and elective feudalism will still rule beneath.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2018.

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