Daily Times

Popular political parties are assets of nations and are not built in one day. Political parties and leaders in Pakistan have survived persecution by the dictators, but they cannot survive their inability to govern, failure of people’s and perception management and reluctance to change with times. After all, change is the only constant, and one better be consistent with

this “constant!”

The interesting case of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is a textbook study. It offers ample ideas about the gradual disappearance of a populist party that was once known for its left-liberal and proletariat tenor, but gradually became a mouthpiece of the ultraconservative feudal landlords with little or nothing to offer to an ever-changing young and particularly urban audience.

Textually, the party did well in its recent Federal tenure, but the deliverance was limited on the practical matters of governance. It granted Gilgit-Baltistan limited internal autonomy and made it part of the Pakistani federation. The party started and successfully led the process of the 18th Constitutional Amendment that the governmental machinery hyped as a great success for Pakistan’s Federalism. While the government gloated over it, the experts and observers worried about the schisms between the willingness, preparation and ability of the provinces first to understand and then implement the reforms.

Apparently, PPP tried hard to make things happen in Balochistan and introduced assistance package Aghaze-Huqooqe-Balochistan. But every committee and group of experts it accumulated hardly delivered. The baffling amounts of resources that were preferentially doled out to the province rather started a menacing spree of bad governance that was led by a chief minister who was less interested in running his province and more in riding his heavy bikes in Islamabad.

The gradual perishing of an era that PPP itself started is heartbreaking — but it also leaves a question mark over the purported wisdom of the PPP’s leadership which preferred toadyism over reasoning and coterie over people

The party tried to solidify its control of politics in Punjab via executive machinations and imposed governor’s rule. Alongside, it unleashed its squad of so-called movers and shakers, led by a senator from Dera Ismail Khan, and all this squad ended up with was disaffection of a woman member of the Punjab Assembly on the reserved seat from Hafizabad. Quite a stunning act of victory, one must admit.

One of the most haunting memories of the PPP’s government is the power crisis and a near-total absence of governing seriousness that a ruling party must have exhibited. The party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari was seen and presented as all-wise and a man of crisis, while a critical look would reveal that it was all personal and politics mixed with a coterie that added pinches of business interests here and there in everyday chores of the government. Indeed the party suffered a terrible loss after the brutal assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, but that could have been the precise moment for the party to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Unfortunately, the party is now on the journey to becoming ashes, and to reverse it, the man and his coterie seem to be struggling hard vainly in turning what has become a tide of the natural evolution. And one defining factor in this gradual evaporation of PPP is the youth bulge that Pakistan has.

Approximately 64 percent of our population is under or equal the age of 26. Ten years ago when Benazir Bhutto was martyred, this crowd was young and growing under the yoke of a military regime that faked progress and development. The first democratic transition it experienced was that of the PPP, and those five years have nearly calcified an impression of democratic governments in their minds. Further, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf blasted its way into the national mainstream via a mysterious miracle of constant media coverage exactly at the time when PPP was well in its fourth year of government. The very youth that PPP has otherwise charmed by citing its sacrifices for democracy turned towards the heavens that Imran Khan promised at that time. Those days, the PPP loved basking in the sun of its speculations that PTI would damage PML-N more for having a right of the centre appeal.

Gradual perishing of an era that PPP started is a heartbreaking phenomenon to witness, but it also leaves a question mark on the purported wisdom of PPP’s leadership who preferred toadyism over reasoning and coterie over people. This is also a lesson for all political parties who think that hill on Islamabad is forever.

The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Social Education and Development, Islamabad