The PPP is its own worst enemy – by Irfan Husain
Power, perceptions and the PPP
By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 30 Jan, 2010
It isn’t often that I agree with Nawaz Sharif. However, when he said a few weeks ago that the PPP was its own worst enemy, he put his finger on the problem this government has faced since it was sworn in nearly two years ago.
This was in response to Asif Zardari’s charge that he and his government were being targeted by ‘non-state actors’. Other PPP figures darkly alluded to the possibility of an army coup against the government. A senior legal counsel appeared to make a similar allegation before the Supreme Court. A section of the media was accused of being a part of this plot.
Just for the record, let me say that the establishment in Pakistan has consistently opposed the PPP, and has worked hard to keep it out of power. And whenever it has been elected, these people have redoubled their efforts to kick it out. Having said this, let me also add that the PPP has done little to foil these attempts. Time after time, it has fallen victim to its own incompetence and corruption.
The reality is that it is much easier to remove a weak, ineffectual government through extra-constitutional means than it is to get rid of a strong, effective one. To be fair, Asif Zardari made a good start, surprising many by his efforts to create an inclusive alliance. However, he soon stumbled by making promises he could not, or would not, keep. This tendency has kept the government forever on the defensive, and even its few good initiatives have been overshadowed by its clumsy manoeuvres.
In politics, perceptions are more important than reality. And increasingly, the public sees this government as unable to deliver on a wide range of issues. High on this list is security. Even though the rise of the Taliban can be blamed on Musharraf, the fact is that he is no longer around, so his successor has to take responsibility for the state of insecurity in which millions of Pakistanis are living through.
The energy crisis is another critical issue that this government has failed to focus on adequately. Granted that here, too, the Musharraf administration failed to plan ahead and make the necessary investment, the PPP has had over 18 months to find short-term and long-term solutions to this chronic problem. While allegations of corruption swirl around the minister concerned, he has neither delivered, and nor has he been sacked.
For the third time in power, the PPP is being accused of sleaze. Stories of graft are doing the rounds in the drawing rooms of our elite, and while this might not be such a big deal for much of the voting public, the fact is that this perception has been used as an excuse to remove governments in the past. And yet when a PPP minister declared on a popular TV talk show that it was ‘now the PPP’s turn to make money’, he was not instantly sacked as he should have been. This would have sent a signal that this time, the PPP leadership would not tolerate corruption.
Or, when cases in Switzerland against Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto were dropped, and some bank accounts in their names with around $60m unfrozen, the president had a wonderful opportunity to clear his name of at least some of the allegations that have stuck for years. He could have announced that just as he had been saying ever since he was accused of money-laundering by the Swiss, he had no idea who this money belonged to. He was therefore going to donate this apparent windfall to a poverty fund set up in Benazir Bhutto’s memory. But I suppose $60m is a lot of money to hand out, even to clear your name.
Buried in these charges of poor governance and corruption lie a number of excellent initiatives. The agreement over resource-sharing among the provinces was a major achievement. The decision to incorporate the northern areas into the mainstream political system was another. Reaching out to Baloch nationalists was an act of statesmanship no general could have been capable of. Unfortunately, none of these resonate very deeply among a public crushed by high prices and unemployment.
True, the PPP does not have a magic wand to solve decades of accumulated problems. But surely it could have set an example of austerity and frugality. Instead of defending itself against allegations of corruption, it could have been more transparent and upfront. In Karachi last month, I met two ladies at different social occasions who demanded to know how I could support democracy when it led to the election of a person like Asif Zardari. Both blamed him personally for the rise in sugar prices. When, they demanded to know, would we be rid of him? I suggested that they wait until the next election, adding that to the best of my knowledge, sugar prices are beyond any individual’s control. Indeed, they are even impervious to the Supreme Court’s diktat.
International prices, and the forces of supply and demand, determine what we pay for most commodities. Their Lordships would do well to remember this simple economic reality the next time they venture into the tricky area of commodity pricing.
In the midst of such allegations, one can hear the refrain we are so familiar with: democracy isn’t working, so bring back the army.
This is the sub-text in many of our popular TV chat shows. As we saw when the army-led media campaign against the Kerry-Lugar Act was in overdrive, there are indeed a number of ‘non-state’ actors, egged on by shadowy, well-heeled agencies, who can unleash a ferocious anti-government media barrage when the need arises.
Unfortunately, this government lacks people who can stand up to this kind of orchestrated campaign. Time and again, its spokespersons have come across as shrill and ill-prepared while being grilled by overbearing and opinionated TV anchors. But more importantly than its image is the delivery: an effective government is in a stronger position to counter media charges, as well as the destabilising efforts of ‘non-state actors’.
irfan.husain@gmail.com
Source: Dawn
another similar article by Gibran Peshiman. I think he is right about PPP’s deal with MQM regarding targetting gangsters in Lyari:
http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=221780
Faustian deals
Gibran Peshimam
Like it or not, the PPP government, more specifically the president, has, it would seem, climbed out of a pretty deep hole. They have scrapped and scratched, jousted and hustled, and have managed to fight through the December deadline that most gave them — shaken but still alive.
And they haven’t done anything nearly as drastic as what was being labelled as ‘necessary for survival’. The president is still the president. Rehman Malik still has his job. Babar Awan is still at his conniving best. Raja Perwaiz Ashraf continues to predict an imminent end to loadshedding. Which of course means Qammaruzaman Kaira continues to wax lyrical.
The MQM has toned down its frenzied rhetoric given the seeming resolution of the local government issue in Sindh. The armed forces seem content for the time being after being allowed to run the war and relations with the US on their own terms. The PML-N threat is minimal at the moment with their leader seemingly content to wait his turn as well as on the 18th Amendment.
Even the fall-out of the court’s NRO verdict — expected to serve as the impetus for the government’s downfall — has been less drastic than forecasted. The immunity discourse is puzzling, and will certainly be prolonged. The lawyers movement, what little is left of it, has postponed its strike given the recognition of their embarrassingly low support.
The apparent divide between Messers Gilani and Zardari seems now like a pretty silly rumour given the PM’s all-out support for his co-chairman on the floor of the national assembly as well as outside. To boot, they have a political and legal prize-fighter in Aitzaz back in their corner.
There are no mobs of disgruntled awam out on the streets baying for blood — as much as certain quarters may want this to be the case.
No sir, the end never came. The decade ended as anticlimactically for conspiracy lovers as it began (remember the Y2K bug?).
You can feel the anxiety that was in the air late last year dissipate.
December-smishember.
The new exit discourse is desperately imaginative. The new ‘deadline’ is now March (or around that time) when the COAS and the ISI chief will want an extension in their tenure. Apparently, the president will not oblige, and that will be that for him and his government. This theory seems more the wish of some disappointed people than it does reality. If the President and his party have compromised on so many other things, why should anyone expect them to take a moral stand on an issue pertaining to the tenure of a COAS? In any case, it’s not as if picking your own army chief earns you political safety (remember Zia and Musharraf?). The President surely knows that.
So that’s it then?
No quite. You see, the biggest threat to the PPP is from within. It is long-term. Nothing has been done to address this threat.
In fact, in the desperate effort to continue in power, the party has worsened this problem. They have sacrificed their future for a little extra time in power.
Faustian deals. They never turn out well.
In placating the MQM, the PPP has committed many faux paus. First off, they have angered their traditional vote bank of Lyari by capitulating, via Rehman Malik, to the MQM’s demand that a group of people in Lyari be declared terrorists during the height of the target killing spree in Karachi. That was when the MQM was threatening to quit the government.
Now, whatever the case, the PPP has never, ever, been so brazen in its categorisation of the elements operating from there. In doing so, they have pleased the MQM, and alienated their vote bank.
Secondly, the capitulation in terms of the local government issue is still unclear, but not even the staunchest PPP supporter can deny that the party appears feeble and weak in the face of a smaller party — one that it does not even need to keep its provincial government afloat. How long will the MQM remain silent for before it makes new demands?
The effort to calm the armed forces, and associated agencies, down has led them to shed their commendable democratic stand of determining the nature of relations with foreign forces — most importantly the US. The PPP has not exactly been the model of resistance in the face of intrusion by the army – but they certainly were historically the vanguard here in Pakistan in this regard. This, too, has been timidly compromised.
Nawaz could play a vital role in felling the government. But he waits silently on the sidelines, as agreed, realising that, left to itself, the Zardari-led PPP will do more than just run themselves out of power. The PPP will actually harm itself to a point where Nawaz will benefit in the long run.
For example, the PPP’s foray into exploiting the ‘Sindh card’ was and is an exercise in self-destruction, and, more importantly, will act as a near-critical blow for national-level politics. The chief benefactor of this, ironically enough, will be the PML-N, which will benefit from political provincialism given its already diminished presence on the national stage. The playing of the Sindh card was a desperate attempt to remain in power, even though the PPP faces no political threat in the province. But in doing so, they have compromised their across-the-board political presence, particularly in Punjab — the bastion of power in the country.
The PPP has bought itself time through Faustian deals. The party may have saved its present, but is now faced with the task of making up plenty of ground lost in the effort to do so.
The NRO and associated problems continue to play themselves out, slowly, despite all these compromises. If the PPP government is to be dismissed a few months later than expected, it will go with its reputation having been critically damaged. And for what?
Yes, December has come and gone. The obituary that was written for the present government may have turned out to be premature. But, if the PPP is not careful, this obituary may have to be converted into one for the party itself.