Daily Times

The government of Pakistan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) finally reached an agreement last week over the constitution of a judicial commission to probe into the alleged rigging in the general elections held in May 2013. The Nawaz government has claimed its success with respect to bending its political opponents to come to the negotiating table and do a deal. The PTI, on its part, seems to have turned the tables on the PML-N in terms of forcing the federal government to not only accept the rigging allegations but has also formed the mentioned commission.
Very interestingly, there has come a mixed response from other political parties. Except for the MQM, almost all other political forces have hailed the formation of the judicial commission that, in their view, will help sort out electoral issues and consolidate the democratic process in Pakistan. Nonetheless, the MQM was very critical of the abovementioned. For instance, Dr Farooq Sattar termed the PTI-government agreement as “sheer violation of the Constitution”. While citing Article 225 of the 1973 Constitution, Dr Sattar argued, “By agreeing to constitute the commission both the PTI and the government are committing violation of the Constitution to which the MQM cannot become part.” Has the government violated the constitutional provision? Why has the MQM severely criticised the formation of the commission and not other political parties? What urged the PTI and PML-N to ultimately reach a consensus to form the commission? Will the government provide the required space to the commission team to investigate objectively? Will the PTI leadership and cadre accept the commission’s findings? And, most importantly, to what extent and in what ways will the formation and function of the said commission help strengthen democratic and legal norms in Pakistan? The following is an attempt to address such questions and concerns.
To begin with, we need to understand politics from a rationalist perspective, which assumes that politicians, among others, are rational human beings with the ability to calculate costs and benefits of an intended action. The rational choice theory as contextualised in political science can provide us with measureable political and economic indicators that, in turn, help explain the strategic interaction among different players, their interests and subsequent choices and choice-oriented outcomes. Let me be clear here by emphasising the explanatory value of the rational choice theory that I am not demoting the worth of other theoretical perspectives that are prevalent in the social sciences. They do exist and serve a purpose. However, to explain the complexities of Pakistan’s politics, if not the state, I rather prefer an actors’-centred approach that can help identify the motives behind certain policies. Interestingly, based on my doctoral research, I argue that the actors in the matrix of Pakistan’s politics have, with very minor exceptions, pursued their individual and partisan interests, mostly of a material nature. This is one of the reasons why Pakistan is suffering from all sorts of ills, from 1947 till today. Neither has Pakistan democratised properly nor has it developed socio-economically. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
To understand and explain contemporary politics in Pakistan, the rationalist framework will assume the Sharif-led federal government and Imran Khan-led PTI have rational actors with certain material interests to maximise. The former is already into a variety of economic enterprises ranging from steel mills to dairy farms. Indeed, Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, in economic partnership with another big business magnate, has established a huge dairy complex in Sukheki (Hafizabad). The PTI, on the other hand, has included large landowners and industrialists in its ranks. Each of these actors was engaging the other to accrue more benefits, either through mutual cooperation (win-win situation) or forcing the other to bear more cost. This was pursued by the PTI in its sit-in strategy. The government bore the cost in terms of losing out to the military with regards to domestic and foreign policy. In other words, the Sharifs have been working as mayors of Islamabad and Lahore since last September. To avoid further damage to its economic, if not political, clout, the PML-N government has desperately been urging the PTI leadership to trace and tread the middle way. On its part, the latter has too incurred more cost than benefits during and after the sit-ins. It miserably failed to dislodge the government. Moreover, it too sought the military’s arbitration vis-à-vis the Sharifs.
The PTI was strategically constrained to call off its dharna (sirt-in) politics in the wake of the Army Public School (APS) attack and severe winter. However, before another summer approaches, both the Sharifs and Khan have preferred a win-win rather than zero-sum approach. Put simply, the Sharifs wanted to prevent another phase of sit-ins in August 2015 for this will damage the government’s remaining moral and political authority given the prevailing energy crisis. It was so pathetic to have suffered from load shedding in my hometown (Sukheki, Hafizabad) on even Pakistan Day. The PTI is afraid of another disappointment with respect to its street power. Hence, both actors chose to form the judicial commission. The government has apparently put an end to the PTI-led agitation politics. The PTI will be playing politics in the name of the commission.
As regards the political acceptability of the judicial commission, the non-MQM parties might have welcomed it for a variety of rational reasons. The PPP sees no rationality in critiquing the agreement post-Senate elections. Such a silence will help avoid criticism of the PPP by the PTI as well. Similarly, other parties are divided in terms of being alliance partners of the PPP, PTI or PML-N. Hence, smaller parties saw to the political strategy of a respective alliance leader. Thirdly, in the context of the National Action Plan (NAP), every political player seems cautious of not plunging into the irrational politics of statements. However, the MQM has a reason to disagree. The former seems bewildered in the wake of the Rangers raid on 90, the political and militant heart of the party. The MQM top leadership is estranged not only from the PML-N, PPP and PTI but also the military. These are viewed as Punjab-based anti-MQM forces bent upon annihilating the party’s leadership and cadre.
Last but not least, the mentioned judicial commission is not likely to generate wide-scale empirical evidence, if history is a guide, to dislodge the government altogether. Moreover, the related legal questions will persist in the days to come. Finally, the government and PTI have reached rapprochement rationally. Its breach will be costly not only for the involved parties but also for Pakistan.

The writer is an independent political scientist and the author of Military Agency, Politics and the State in Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbhatty