The $64,000 question

After next elections, we may end up with a coalition government similar to the one we have now but led by ...?

Imran is a breath of political fresh air. Bilawal is still a political unknown. Nawaz is a tried and tested political entity. Asif the survivor continues to remain a political enigma. The Maulana is a skilful political game-setter. Altaf Bhai is a proficient power player. Asfandyar enjoys his politics, playing from behind the scene. Shujaat is fighting for survival.

Imran is an achiever — his latest achievement being the first ever intra-party elections held by any political party in the post-independent South Asia. With this, he has shown that he is prepared to take the necessary political risks to make a bid for the top political office. His appeal to the youth bulge is phenomenal.

Young Bilawal has no personal achievements to show so far. However, he heads a 43-year-old party, which has many achievements and failures to its credit. The party will be completing its fourth stint in the government. It has given the nation its first-ever consensus Constitution. His grandfather is credited to have given voice to the downtrodden and also authored the country’s nuclear weapons’ programme. His mother is credited to have died fighting for democracy. The jury is still out on his father.

Nawaz, the motorway man, has the distinction of introducing Pakistan to globalised market economy. He has also the distinction of rushing into head-on collisions with all his army chiefs — Aslam Beg, Asif Nawaz, Kakar, Jehangir Karamat, and General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. His biggest political achievements are signing the now-almost-defunct Charter of Democracy with his political rival, the late Benazir Bhutto, and bending politically backwards to protect the current political dispensation from potential civil and military adventurers. Midway through, because of this policy, he lost a lot politically, mostly to a resurgent Imran Khan. Now, he seems to be regaining fast the lost ground.

President Zardari’s biggest achievement is his success in leading an elected civilian government to complete its tenure for the first time, since the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution. His other major achievement is in keeping the PPP intact after the violent and untimely death of his spouse, the charismatic Benazir. His third major success has been in letting each of the political party in parliament to have a stake in the current political dispensation. Punjab is with Nawaz and in Sindh, despite the PPP’s absolute majority, the party is sharing power with the MQM. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the PPP has helped the ANP form a government and in Balochistan, the ruling party is sharing power with the PML-Q and the JUI-F. In addition, under his watch, the 1973 Constitution was rendered back to its original shape — a real achievement in the face of multidirectional pulls from the coalition partners, each having its own manifesto to protect, while at the same time facing a formidable parliamentary opposition, perpetually challenging his right to rule. And hounded by the media and chased by the courts on a daily basis, he seems to have willingly or grudgingly let the executive authority be shorn off most of its dictatorial kinks while sticking dearly to his policy of reconciliation.

The MQM and the JUI-F have followed the policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds — in the case of the MQM, it was to protect its political stakes in urban Sindh and in the case of the JUI-F, it was to protect its ultra-religious constituency. The PML-Q, facing desertion under pressure from the PML-N, had no alternative but to extend a hand of cooperation to the PPP for its own survival. The ANP feels obliged to President Zardari for getting the party what it had been demanding since partition — changing the name of the province to what it believes to be one truly representing its sociocultural identity.

On the face of it, Nawaz seems about to break into the lead while the Rehman Maliks and Wattoos of the PPP are making it almost impossible for the party to make a fight for it. Asfandyar, Imran, Altaf Bhai, the Maulana and Shujaat are likely to gain enough to bargain themselves back into a power-sharing position and after the next polls, we may end up with a coalition government similar to the one we have now but led by ...? Yes, there is a $64,000 question mark there.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2012.