Delusional political fiefdoms

Following Zohran Mamdani's historic electoral victory in the New York City's Mayoral race, a slew of politicians in Pakistan have jumped on the bandwagon and claimed his politics as perfectly reflective of their own. These sentiments are, sadly, little more than delusions.

PPP was the first to latch onto Mamdani's focus on bread and butter concerns within a larger socialist project, with Mr Bilawal Bhutto tweeting that his win "reaffirms that Roti, Kapra aur Makan remain universal rights, a manifesto of dignity shared by people from Karachi to New York". As anyone from Sindh will profess, however, the slogan in question is merely an empty string of words today.

The party's performance in Sindh since the 18th Amendment has been abysmal on all salient human development indicators. At the end of 2023, the literacy rate for ages 10 and above in Sindh stood at just 57% whereas 47% of children between the ages of 5-16 were out of school. Even more shockingly, only 27% of primary schools in the province were found to have access to electricity, 56% had available drinking water, 53% had a functional toilet, and 58% had a boundary wall! On the health front, under-5 mortality in the province was approximately 5% (1 in 20) in 2023, whereas half of those that survive end up experiencing some form of stunting. Only 1 in 3 receives age-appropriate immunisation, and pregnancy-related maternal deaths occur in around 35 out of 1000 of deliveries.

Furthermore, with the exception of Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana and Sukkur, at least 35% of the inhabitants in every district of Sindh were below the poverty line — with the entirety of the southern belt (Thatta, Sujawal, Badin, Umerkot and Tharparkar) hosting populations in which more than 69% fell below the poverty line in 2024 as per Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund. The PPP has simply refused to devolve power to local governments or conduct meaningful land reforms and, despite passing laws on the liberation of student unions, has been unable to work with leadership at higher education institutes to operationalise stipulations. Karachi, Pakistan's business hub, is in a shambles, with continued urban flooding, crumbling infrastructure, water shortages, electricity theft, petty crime and a dearth of urban forestry, traffic control, walkable spaces, public transit and homeless shelters.

PTI also wasted no time drawing parallels between Mamdani and their leader, specifically his 'anti-establishment' politics. Perhaps they are unaware of the former's policy of zero tolerance for antisemitism, for which he won endorsements from major Jewish citizen groups and religious clergy. Maybe they did not receive the memo on his long history of activism in support of the LGBTQ+ community — supporting the Shield Law, Gender Recognition Act, and Proposition 1, to name just a few — as Assemblyman in New York. Or his deep affiliations with groups involved in the fight for the rights of women and racial minorities like Hispanics and African Americans. The Kaptaan relied almost entirely on support from 'the angels' to penetrate into mainstream politics in Pakistan and continually pandered to extremist factions for mileage while in power. This is not to mention the routine deployment of misogynistic remarks, including the infamous 'men are not robots' quip as a response to rising cases of sexual abuse and harassment and the continued framing of women's 'true role' as being confined to household chores.

As far as social liberties were concerned, the PTI continually either turned a blind eye to or actively enabled violence against religious minorities — with a long list of damning incidents including capitulation to TLP following Asia Bibi's acquittal, the targeted killing of 11 Hazara coalminers in Balochistan (whose families the PM said he will not be 'blackmailed' into visiting), the desecration of the Bhong (Hindu) temple in Rahim Yar Khan, the lynching/torching of Priyantha Kumara on blasphemy claims, and the literal stoning of a mentally ill man in Khanewal for alleged 'mishandling' of the Quran.

The party also passed an amendment to the PECA ordinance allowing government functionaries to file defamation suits against critics, supported the arrests and harassment of journalists, ramped up fund allocations to questionable madrasa networks, set up Rehmatul-lil-Alameen Authority to 'monitor blasphemous content' on social media, and vehemently pushed the obnoxious Single National Curriculum that eliminated 'objectionable content' (otherwise known as basic science) while promoting a restrictive and exclusionary version of religious instruction.

Pakistan's 'legacy' party in the PML-N generally refrained from commenting on Mamdani's electoral success, presumably due to his principled and unambiguous stance in favour of Palestine at a time when it is bending over backwards to cozy up to the Trump administration. This in itself speaks volumes about the ruling party's purely opportunistic approach to politics, which comes as no surprise as it has always preferred to keep power concentrated in and around the Sharif family: running operations not dissimilar to how a mafia group might.

A great example of this is the South Punjab Secretariat, which was originally set up to improve service delivery in Punjab by devolving various functions — 17 in total — to the South. Since then, the provincial capital has prevented fiscal decentralisation and continued to exercise close control over the Secretariat, with the Chief Minister handpicking additional secretaries that are guaranteed to toe her line.

This is not to mention the party's deep history of financial embezzlement and offshoring of assets, the persistent crises of smog, sprawl and utterly lopsided development in its 'stronghold' of Lahore — around which the sheer helplessness is now approaching comical levels — and its ongoing efforts to kneecap democracy once and for all at the orders of its favourite institution. The series of 'constitutional amendments' being passed are sure to obstruct accountability for key figures, further consolidate authority at the federal level, and fully transform Pakistan into a formal security state that exists for no purpose other than as a facilitator (or conveyor belt) for global capital. The PML-N achieves all this, of course, with its trusty sidekicks in the erstwhile 'Pakistan Democratic Movement'. The irony would be funny if it weren't inevitably going to lead to catastrophic consequences for the people.

Let there be no two opinions: Pakistan's mainstream parties have nothing in common with Zohran Mamdani. If anything, they collectively represent his antithesis.