A beautiful writing by Moeed Pirzada
Status Update
By Moeed Pirzada
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After 9 days of marches & dharnas in rain & sun, this has become all the more relevant to look into the future ...
Why Elections 2013 have become irrelevant? - Any sane person familiar with history of Pakistan will find it difficult to disagree that for all practical purposes the Elections 2013 that created the current parliament have lost most if not all utility as a political instrument. Elections are only one of the instruments of political legitimacy and control and Elections - especially when they are held under a complex system of 'First pass the Poll' mechanism -- are credible and meaningful only as long as they define the political reality, mood, argument and legitimacy for governance, and making difficult decisions and for carrying all sides along. In Pakistan a new political reality has emerged which is not being defined by the parliament. The conduct of the parliament and its recent resolutions in self-defense only represent 'conflict of interest' because the members inside have little bearing on the situation outside and no connect with thousands sitting outside and millions and millions across the country who are convinced that Elections 2013 were stolen and the ruling party, its allies and sections of judiciary (that in public consciousness have tried sitting in judgment on political conflicts with partisan minds) promoted by Justice Iftikhar Chauhdry are all acting in cahoots.
PM Nawaz & PMLN had several opportunities in the last 14 months to engage their real political opposition and to resolve the issues that were brewing regarding Elections 2013 but PM Nawaz and PMLN leadership failed to grasp the political realities. Initial tensions with Military Establishment on Musharraf trial (not as decisive or dangerous as conveyed by lay media) lead to more serious brinksmanship on GEO issue convincing the military to the last soldier that Nawaz Sharif is after them turning this into an existential conflict. Once the conflict reached the razor edge PMLN leadership panicked and started denying it and mending it. However it had crossed the tipping point. Today it is difficult to find a single living person inside the military establishment that has anything positive to say about PM Nawaz. This has provided a huge space to PMLN's political opposition which they have expanded by this recent movement. Now one can make lot of academic, moral, constitutional or starry eyed legalistic arguments about this situation but 'real politick' matters in the end and you need 'power' to govern, to take decisions and deliver. PM Nawaz's ill thought move to persuade US State Department to issue strong statements in his defense (in a country where most educated people are painfully aware that how US has repeatedly ditched democracy and democratic principles all across Muslim world for expediency and short term interests) has further weakened PM Nawaz politically - which was at full display on 21st Aug, during PTI rally at D-Chowk.
PM & his team's failure to grasp political realities is pretty obvious when instead of relying upon savvy political engagements with their opponents they kept on either relying upon 'administrative muscle' or 'pedestrian arguments' to control a reality that was emerging or was made to emerge in front of their faces. For instance midnight invasion of Dr. Tahir ul Qadri's Model Town Compound in Lahore in June, using Punjab Police, that turned into a murder of 14-15 innocent people; diverting Emirates Plane to Lahore so that Qadri cannot lead a procession from Islamabad to Lahore; imprisoning hundreds and thousands of people in Lahore and Punjab and later Islamabad inside walls of containers; jockeying with the stupid idea of clearing crowds in Lahore once again through Police action; orchestrating an attack on PTI rally in Gujranwala to create fear; and most importantly the latest brain wave of clearing crowds - that combined reaches close to hundred thousand at night - outside parliament through police crackdown are all specimens of that 'administrative muscle' thinking that has continuously backfired and yet has been relied upon. We can't still be sure if they have overgrown this 'under-siege' mentality.
What about the pedestrian arguments? Instead of focusing upon possible political engagement and political solutions to satisfy their opponents, PMLN leaders, allied sections of Media and Social Media Teams kept focusing on how many protesters are there? ignoring the reality that their opponents were able to mobilize hundreds and thousands in different cities in the past several weeks across the country either through congregations, jalsas, marches and 'dharnas" or through tv or social media changing the political discourse and its arguments creating a new consciousness focused on rigged elections, and painting Nawaz Sharif govt as a family rule of father, brother, daughter, nephews, cousins, close relatives and former paid employees etc, backed by judges that had either worked directly for Nawaz Sharif's business interests or were promoted by him in their careers. PMLN kept on defining this as 'few thousand protestors' in Islamabad ignoring that PTI after all had collected around 8 million votes, had challenged elections and the crowds in Islamabad only represent "tip of the iceberg" representing a much larger political discontent across the country. Also the facts that such large crowds managed to reach Islamabad despite thousands of arrests, police beatings, attacks by PMLN workers, hundreds of road blocks, police restrictions of all sorts and were able to sustain themselves despite repeated rains, heat, humidity, problems of food, toilettes and fear of Police crackdowns say's something about the political mood across country - crowds know fully well that they represent a feeling across the country. Now other "dharnas" or sit-ins have appeared across Karachi, Lahore and Multan and more may emerge.
All this does not mean that PMLN does not have large support bases across Punjab or Nawaz has to resign; Nawaz Sharif still has support of almost all parliamentary parties in the house and his party is now busy parading its own supporters or allied religious parties on streets. But what this new political situation clearly shows is that PM Nawaz Sharif's ability to take the country along as a whole and to take difficult decisions either with India or internally on economy is much reduced now. The assembly he is trying to find support from is precisely the assembly which is under challenge and ridicule by his opponents. History is replete with such examples where monarchs and rulers keep taking refuge behind a political structure whose credibility is being questioned - and in most cases it fails.
This is not a numbers game but a "political moment" the kind of moment where the politics changes; PMLN still thinks that rain, or heat, cholera or sectarian conflict or police action will clear the crowds and things will become smooth again. It won't happen. If PM Nawaz fails to engage Imran Khan & even Qadri in a meaningful constructive way then his government will remain troubled even if this "political moment" passes. This is time to think of "political & constitutional solutions" that can restore trust between all sides with a view towards future. Current setup without some accommodations wont deliver. It has lots its utility, relevance and legitimacy; this is emerging realpolitik and will start to sink soon - even If not clear to many caught in the heat of the moment.
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