Daily Times

The PPP-led federal government faces multiple problems in the beginning of the New Year. However, there is at least one good development. The self-proclaimed informed people have once again been proved wrong because their prediction about the collapse of the federal government in December did not materialise. This was the third or fourth deadline for the fall of the federal government during the last two years that did not bear fruit.

There were three notable cases of non-partisanship and cooperation among different political parties in 2010. They cooperated with one another in parliament for the passage of the 18th and the 19th constitutional amendments. These constitutional amendments dealt with many difficult issues but the political parties agreed to adopt a shared approach through deliberations in the parliamentary constitutional amendment committee.

The third consensus-based development was the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award that increased financial allocations for the provinces. All provinces and the federal government agreed on it and all political parties in parliament were on board.

This does not mean that everything is fine with the PPP government and that the democratic experiment initiated in February 2008 has become non-reversible. The political leaders will either lose their way or reach nowhere if they continue to tread the present path of partisan politics, acute confrontation and personalised criticism of leaders.

Our political leaders value democracy to the extent that it facilitates the achievement of partisan interests, legitimises their agenda or serves as a basis for reprimanding political adversaries. For example, the Islamist parties and groups are democratic and constitutionalist to the extent that these norms help to achieve their agenda of Islamisation of the state and society. If any democratic principle or constitutional provision does not suit them, they invoke Islam to delegitimise it.

Two sets of developments in December have raised doubts about the capacity of the political leaders to rise above their narrow and partisan interests in the New Year. The PML-N and the MQM leaders engaged in harsh verbal encounters, making highly personalised comments against each other, which could be described as nothing more than mud-slinging. The other development relates to the decision of the JUI-F and the MQM to withdraw from the federal cabinet for different reasons.

The federal government is not expected to collapse in early 2011 because the PML-N does not want to mobilise the opposition groups to move a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly. It wants to wait and see how the PPP government becomes a victim of its own blunders. Why take the blame when the PML-N leadership is convinced that the PPP will continue to lose credibility in 2011? Further, the PML-N lacks any new ideas to address the problems that have baffled the PPP leadership.

The MQM and the JUI-F can build pressure on the federal government but they cannot pull it down because they falter in the numbers game. This task has become more difficult as the PML-N and the MQM are engaged in a bitter confrontation against each other. They are preparing for the next round.

Unlike the JUI-F, which lacks enough political clout to make its demand credible for the removal of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the MQM is better placed to build pressure on the PPP. Its objective is not to pull down the PPP government but to use its voting bloc in the National Assembly to extract political concessions in urban Sindh. The politics of the MQM revolve around its desire to sustain its monopoly of political power in Karachi and Hyderabad. It feels that its interests are threatened by the PPP and the ANP in Karachi. The Sunni Tehreek is another emerging challenge to the MQM’s monopoly in Karachi. Furthermore, the removal of the local government and the exercise of its powers by the bureaucracy under the Sindh provincial government have also adversely affected the MQM’s political clout.

If the PPP accommodates the MQM on these counts, the latter can return to the federal coalition. Otherwise, it will also pull out of the Sindh government, adding to the problems of the PPP. Further, past experience suggests that the withdrawal of the MQM from the Sindh government often results in stepped up violence in Karachi. If this happens again, Pakistan’s internal stability will receive another serious blow.

The JUI-F has chosen another path. It has joined other Islamist parties and groups to play the religious card. The issue of the Blasphemy Law has become a handy tool as a Christian woman was given the death sentence under this law by a lower court and the PPP government indicated its desire to amend the law to avoid its misuse against religious minorities. Maulana Fazlur Rehman joined with other orthodox religious groups to launch a countrywide agitation to oppose changes in the Blasphemy Law. This has provided him with an ideal opportunity to build pressure on the PPP federal government by playing on religious sentiments. The mainstream political parties have either decided to stay quiet or side with the Islamic parties, forcing the federal government to step back on this issue.

Pakistan will experience two types of inter-related political activity in 2011. One, the mainstream political parties and Islamic parties will continue to build pressure on the PPP-led federal government for pursuing different sets of objectives. Two, each type of party, mainstream and Islamic, will also engage in mutual bickering. The MQM and the PML-N are on the warpath against each other and a lot more political fireworks will be witnessed in 2011. The PML-N and the PML-Q will also engage in polemics incessantly. The Islamic parties and groups will contest each other on the basis of the personalities of their leaders and Islamic-denominational differences, i.e. sectarianism.

These conflicts and fights will give some relief to the PPP but Pakistan will experience highly partisan politics, ample use of Islamic orthodoxy for advancing the political agendas of the Islamic parties, religious intolerance and sympathy for militancy. This will take Pakistan on a path that goes nowhere.

The key challenges to the present and the future of Pakistan will get less or no attention. These challenges include the troubled economy, increased economic disparities, poverty and underdevelopment, religious extremism, terrorism and poor quality of democracy. These are not the priorities of the political parties and religious leaders who are engaged in power struggles under self-serving slogans. Can they change in 2011 and focus on these issues?

The writer is a political and defence analyst