Daily Times

Last week when the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office, the ruling party PML-N nominated premier’s brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif as his successor. However, as Shahbaz Sharif is yet to be elected to National Assembly, another party man Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will serve as interim PM. Many in the public and media criticised it as perpetuation of dynastic politics. It was no less ironic to see even those who are third and fourth generation of their respective families in parliament condemning this decision.

Political dynasties generally draw a disdain from the public globally yet people keep voting the members of these dynasties into public offices. And it hardly matters if the electorates are from the US where they have kept electing scions of the Adams, Kennedys, Roosevelts, Bushes and Clintons, or from India where Nehru family has wielded unmatched sway over voters’ choice for decades. In Pakistan, while the Bhuttos have enjoyed this dynastic status at national level, and Sharifs have risen to the same status in the last 30 years, both families’ political founders acquired charismatic image through their own credentials although both grew under the auspices of two different military regimes. It’s no coincidence that these two families had to grow under military regimes as military has ruled this country for 33 years.

In Pakistan, where the military has acquired incomparably greater influence and power, no ordinary civilian Prime Minister can stand the pressure and challenges of competing civil-military relations

Particularly in Pakistan, where its turbulent political experience and history have hardly allowed the growth of political parties and democratic institutions, dynasties were natural to have arisen. We know what existed before the British occupation of the Indo-Pak subcontinent was just rule of hereditary Rajas and Maharajas under Mughal or Delhi Sultanate. So it was understandable that people at grassroots have continued voting for those who were historically identified as having means to cultivate relations and proximity with central powers. Certainly, we don’t see the ilk of Makhdooms, Lagharis, Syeds, Rajputs, Khataks, Afridis repeatedly elected to national and provincial assemblies and governments for no other reason than their dynastic influence and acumen in power politics.

What we perhaps err when we get impatient with the very existence of political dynasties and families is that we tend to overlook the sociological triggers to political evolution. Electorates entrust their chosen candidate to represent them and govern over them on the basis of a complex criteria which might include ideology, previous performance, credible promise, and more importantly the candidate’s ability to challenge and successfully face the forces that voters see as adversaries. If the democratic process is allowed to evolve and continue uninterrupted, the influence of political dynasties will minimise. But it never disappears.

Paradoxically though, if it was not for political dynasties we would not have seen women entering powerful political offices be it Hilary Clinton, Mrs Bandaranayke, Indira Gandhi, Marine Le Pen, and our own Benazir Bhutto in addition so many who occupy the seats in all parliaments of the world. Imagine, what would be the probability of Benazir becoming the first Prime Minister of Pakistan if she weren’t from Bhuttos? The point is so long as succeeding members from a political family are delivering the goods and enjoy the trust of their electorates, disbanding them is anything but justice. In any way, not all scions of political families attract the trust of same electorates who may have supported their family members in past; Rahul Gandhi is case in point and so is Bilawal Bhutto, at least thus far.

In Pakistan where the institution of military has acquired incomparably greater influence and power, no ordinary civilian Prime Minister can stand the pressure and challenges of competing civil-military relation. Just look at the former prime ministers such as Raja Parvez Ashraf, Yousuf Raza Gilani, Zafarullah Jamali and Shoukat Aziz; did they stand any chance of winning the argument from as powerful an institution as Pakistan military? Zulfikar Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif so obviously did.

In his book What’s to Be Done Vladimir Lenin writes “workers, average people of the masses, are capable of displaying enormous energy and self-sacrifice in strikes and in street, battles with the police and the troops, and are capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the outcome of our entire movement, but the struggle against the political police requires special qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries”. In the absence of true revolutionaries with us, for the time being our best bet against political police is a powerful dynasty and Shahbaz Sharif’s choice makes sense.

The writer is a sociologist with interest in politics and history. He tweets at @ZulfiRao1

Published in Daily Times, August 3^nd 2017.