Daily Times

The country is heading towards the most heeding and gritty elections since 1971, as the incumbent PMLN government finishes its five-year term on May 31 this year. With elections around the corner, the conscious of many lawmakers have awoken as the elections are just around the corner.

In retrospection, many electable swing their loyalties before elections with the expected mainstream party in line to form the government. A few of them contest the polls independently just to align themselves with the ruling party later on.

Interestingly, the bottle is new this time. After the conclusion of the Senate elections, the rebellion groups of PMLN from Balochistan formed their own ‘Balochistan Awami Party’, considering the deprivation of the province. Similarly, in South Punjab, 11 lawmakers formed a split group within PMLN with an excuse of ‘South Punjab Province Mahaaz’.

We knew that the divestment episode would hit back before the election. Ironically, these lawmakers only realised the deprivation of their constituency after spending five years at the helm.

According to the official record, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, leading the ethos of ‘South Punjab Province Mahaaz’, only presented one motion and passed two bills in his current legislative term and none of them included the South Punjab affair.

A similar situation was witnessed in Karachi as well. It will not be incorrect to say that it all started from Karachi when PSP was formed parallel to MQM in 2016. It was reported in media the PSP was personally looked after by then Army Chief General Raheel Sharif. It was obviously a massive development but definitely not the first in Pakistani politics. One can only hope that the Balochistan and South Punjab fissures do not have any footprints of engineered politics.

The point to understand is that the faces that have created new political parties recently have not made a single attempt against the dispossession of Balochistan and South Punjab. It’s simply opportunism in different modus-operandi.

The ongoing scenario is not in favour of any mainstream political party because the electables are forming their own ‘King’s parties’

Far more significant is the TLYR phenomena. It is also a registered political party which has bagged sufficient votes in by-elections. However, TLYR, for the second time, triggered a massive dharna. Major cities were chocked. The citizens experienced trouble, but the mainstream media remained silent due to consternation. The state machinery once again remained paralysed and eventually succumbed and accepted the demands of the protestors.

Lastly, the US state department recently amended the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), adding Hafiz Saeed-led MML to the lists. The development happened just after Alice Wells’ visit to Pakistan. The US wants Pakistan to take action against Hafiz Saeed for alleged involvement in 2008 Mumbai attacks which left 188 people dead. The US in 2012 offered a $10 million bounty for capturing Hafiz Saeed or furnishing with any information which leads to his arrest. MML, which is a registered political party, has also participated in by-elections and snared more votes than PPP — a mainstream political party.

However, the artefact which is haunting amidst this is the creation of small groups. Previously, these electable were infiltrated in the mainstream parties, but the current shape of politics is leading us towards multiple ethnic and sectarian base groups. Adding on, it will give colour to ethnicity and create more demarcation in society. Political parties formed on the basis of race, caste or sect only weaken the federation. Already our society has too much of polarisation.

What is clear is that the small groups are bagging more significance and vote bank. Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani is the evidence. Secondly, TLYR and MML trapping more votes than PPP is an eye-opening time for the political parties to review their politics to keep their vote bank intact. Thirdly, the electable are forming independent groups instead of going into PTI, which is a loss for Imran Khan who believes to be the prime minister in waiting.

The ongoing scenario is not in favour of any mainstream political party because the electable are forming their ‘King Parties’. And the extremism in our society is tilting voters towards the sectarian organisations. Unfortunately, when these groups were mobilising the public, our major political players were grabbing each other’s collar. The recent lifetime disqualification decision of Nawaz and Jahangir Khan Tareen will have far-reaching impact on the federal parties, and ultimate beneficiary will be the smaller groups.

The writer is an academic. He tweets @muhd_hani

Published in Daily Times, April 19^th 2018.