The clock is ticking, and before we know it, before we’ve done our homework – because being Pakistanis we are not very good at boring stuff like homework – the next elections will be upon us. But for the life of me, although I’m trying hard to figure this out, I haven’t the faintest idea what we’ll be talking about, the issues that will be agitated, the great positions that will be taken.
I think the elections will turn upon incumbency, the goodness or badness of the present order, which really boils down to the person we all love to hate: the occupant of one of the worst pieces of architecture, the Presidency, in a capital that Ayub Khan should never have built.
It’s quite a line attacking the occupant because the familiar things we know about him, and the world too knows about, make for an easy target. But if it is just this, and nothing else, nothing that can count as an alternative narrative – forgive the social science slang – the ground is going to be pretty thin on which to enter the elections.
At the risk of upsetting the chattering classes whose feelings on incumbency are well known – there is no shortage of people who seem about to suffer a stroke when incumbency is discussed – the demonisation of a single target, and I know I am speaking in code, may not quite be the trick that turns the elections.
People are fed up of the political class. But this affects everyone in the political pecking order, not only the president and his party but everyone holding political office – which covers quite a bit of the political spectrum.
It is not enough to say…ah, this corruption and mis-governance will ruin us. It is also necessary to go a step further and present an alternative. If this is bad, what do I have to offer? And if a compelling alternative is not available, or you lack the wit to frame one, demonisation works only up to a point. The human ear can only take so much of criticism and denunciation.
Not to forget another point: familiarity takes the edge off demonisation. When Zardari declared his candidacy it struck a note of disbelief across the country. Zardari as president: it sounded too preposterous to be true.
I once happened to visit that remarkable seat of learning called the National Defence University – won’t call it a white elephant any more – and I remember several near-apoplectic officers in uniform pointing to a photo of the Supreme Commander on a wall, barely able to hide their indignation. If they could have done it, the photo would have been pulled down. Such were the feelings the Supreme Commander aroused.
And there were stalwarts of civil society – I suppose there is no escaping this term any more – retired civil service and foreign office stars who would go red in the face discussing the incumbent when he was elected. If anyone proffered the opinion that it was best and proper for his term to finish, swift would come the response: could the country afford the horror of a Zardari presidency?
And media jihadis – a small, dedicated band of them, with rolling eyes and solemn faces – were setting deadlines about imminent and inescapable change at the top, one of my media friends making that famous prediction about an ambulance coming round to the Presidency when the hour of change struck.
After nearly three years the hard edges of that early disdain have worn off. Since wonders will never cease, what people just could not digest then, they are getting used to now. Of course, not a day passes without the mantra that the country is going to the dogs. But there is no denying the obvious. The president is still around.
Not only that, he is gaining a reputation for slick cleverness. Previously, in the public imagination, his CV began with the word corruption and ended with it. The staple of the presidential broth remains corruption. But to that have been added other ingredients, cleverness being one of them.
Those in the business of politics – and politics is the foremost passion in the Islamic Republic, that and the drumbeats of false piety – have to realise one thing: wishes, alas, are not horses. And merely expressing the wish for change is not going to deliver it. The political class, if it is so keen about it, will have to work for change. But there are precious few signs of anything along those lines happening.
The PML-N was the party in waiting. It is still the party in waiting. But to enter the lists next year and grab the prize on offer it will have to put things together. What will be its clarion call, the bugle it will sound? It has to go to the electorate with something compelling. A one-point agenda of Zardari-baiting – this is my feeling, and I could be wrong – is not likely to be enough.
After all, having been in office in Punjab it is its performance there that will count. What has it to show for itself? This is the challenge before it: putting together a stirring election narrative, something that touches people, making them think daring thoughts.
How much of a factor will Imran Khan be? More and more people predict that the young are going to root for him. Perhaps they will, because the established parties – and let me not name names – have engendered a sense of weariness and anger. I keep meeting people who shake their heads and say that the burger crowd in cities – denizens of Defence, etc. – will go Imran Khan’s way. But does he really have that spark which will set people on fire? Will “electable” candidates gather around him?
Looking angry and always looking angry is one thing, but then you should also have something to say…something beyond the regular broadsides against corruption and its attendant ills.
If the president has to be beaten at his own game, his opponents will have to be smarter than him. It has not paid to underestimate him. It will not pay merely to mutter imprecations against him. The arrows shot at him have done him little harm. Some sharper ones have to be found.
If a week is a long time in politics, three-and-a-half years in power in the context of Pakistani politics is almost an eternity. Powerful governments with convincing majorities have not been able to last as long. What we are seeing is a party with no majority in the National Assembly cobbling together the most unlikely alliances and sticking to power.
There is not much on the credit side of the PPP government but sometimes, when the odds are stacked against you, mere survival becomes the highest virtue. Would anyone two years or a year ago have given the president the ability to complete his term? But on this score, if no other, he has proved his detractors wrong. This must be taken into account when we take stock of the current situation or lay any bets on the shape of things to come next year.
The past, in one crucial respect, has already been stood on its head. Who could have thought that of all the forces on earth the PPP, historically an anathema for the armed forces, would emerge as the foremost defender and champion of the army and what we call the agencies? Time was when it was rumoured about Gen Kayani that he was averse to meeting the Supreme Commander alone, without witnesses. How distant that time seems.
I know this is pretty depressing stuff. But the point is worth repeating that mere frothing at the mouth is of little use in this most practical and merciless of games called politics.
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