Democracy's antithesis

By Amir Zia

The News
August 19, 2010

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's formal launch into politics has been put on hold – at least for the time being. He pulled out of the Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) rally in Birmingham, UK at the last minute, saying that he would rather collect money to help the flood-hit people of Pakistan. Younger Zardari's statement came following an uproar in both the local and the international media on the timing of his father's visit to France and the UK as his countrymen faced the worst floods in 80 years.

The sum-total of the trip certainly brought more embarrassment to President Zardari and the government on domestic as well as international fronts rather than any mileage. But the president and his aides sensed the public mood and anger too late. Their meek damage-control measure of keeping the younger Zardari away from the Birmingham rally -- where he had to be formally crowned as another ruler-in-waiting – seems more buckling down under pressure and an admission of guilt than an act of philanthropy.

Yes, the younger Zardari, being cultivated to take the reins of the party of his mother and maternal grandparents, has to wait a little bit more before he steps into their big boots as the chairman of the PPP -- seen as the biggest liberal, secular and democratic political party of the country. And here lies the biggest paradox of Pakistani democrats and their democracy. An inexperienced youngster seen as the galvanising force and saviour of a party, which takes pride in changing Pakistan's political landscape through its popular politics in the 1970s. It is an irony that Pakistani democracy is being fed and sustained on the basis of dynasty.

The burden of dynastic politics is not confined to the PPP alone, or even Pakistan, it weighs on the entire South Asia where it remains a force to be reckoned with. Be it Nehru's India or dynastic feuds between Hasina Wajid and Khalida Zia of Bangladesh, or our own Bhuttos, Sharifs, Khans, Nawabs, Chaudhrys or hereditary Maulanas, these political dynasties in the garb of political parties have been one of the inherent contradictions and flaws of South Asian democracy – where covert or overt authoritarian rule has reigned supreme. Widows, sons, daughters and brothers of one patriarch or the other have held South Asian politics and democracy hostage. There are arguments in favour of larger-than-life politicians, their importance and role in the Third World countries, but the fact of the matter remains that it defies the essence of democracy.

The case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's PPP is a prime example as to how a party of the masses transformed into a fiefdom of a family and a small coterie comprising mostly feudal lords and their select middle-class sidekicks. The successive military rules definitely proved to be a factor in the blocking of the organic growth of political parties in Pakistan, but it also provided an excuse to politicians to deny internal democracy and elections within their parties. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was an elected PPP chairman. Nusrat Bhutto and later Benazir Bhutto transcended to this post in the unique and oppressive times of General Ziaul Haq. But after the return of democracy, Benazir Bhutto never thought of giving her party the democracy whose cause she championed all her life. She became the life-chairperson of the PPP after a bitter row with her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, who was ousted from the party's top honorary slot unceremoniously in 1993 for siding with her son Murtaza Bhutto in their family feud.

While the title of life-chairperson itself undermined the core democratic values, Benazir Bhutto even chose to run her party affairs through nominated office-bearers from top to bottom rather than the elected ones. She chose in favour of a cult following and cashing in on Bhutto's controversial judicial murder rather than transforming her party into an institution. And this pattern has been followed by most major Pakistani political parties where members of one family dominate their party.

This trend of dynastic politics, though seen as acceptable in our part of the world, remains incompatible with the modern age. It does not allow political parties to transform into genuine, functioning institutions and discourages merit. A political worker has no way to rise to the top by building trust in his constituency and serving his neighbourhood. Rather his political rise would depend on the judgment of the top leader or leaders who would pick and choose people on the basis of personal loyalty. This may suit political wheelers and dealers and cronies, but imagine the plight of genuine political workers and leaders – even if they make a grand compromise and choose to stay in the party.

The Raza Rabbanis, Aitzaz Ahsans, Taj Haiders, Shah Mehmood Qureshis, Sherry Rehmans and other PPP stalwarts need to come up with a rational answer why a 22-year-old gets the "divine right" to lead the party now or even after the completion of his education, as was said by the younger Zardari when he announced his withdrawal from the Birmingham rally. Why can't the PPP elect its leader? Why are party workers unable to choose their office-bearers? This is as illogical and undemocratic as handing over the party to a widower on the basis of a "will." Is the PPP a family estate which can be thrown in anyone's lap? The founding fathers of this party, including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, certainly did not envision it this way.

Of course many leaders and the rank-and-file of the new-look PPP under President Zardari will hail the advent of the young "Bhutto Zardari" as their leader sooner rather than later. But it does not change the fact that the politics, creed and practice of the PPP of 2010 have no semblance with the PPP of 1970 or that of 1980 or even 1988. The genesis of today's PPP remains in the controversial decade of the 1990s which shattered the dreams of many of its followers and ushered in an era of unprecedented corruption and nepotism.

One should sympathise with the past and present workers and leaders of the PPP who have seen their party transform into a fiefdom. One should also sympathise with the toiling masses of Pakistan who have only been robbed and cheated in the name of democracy and people's power. Pakistan, democracy and this politics of dynasties cannot survive together for long. The country needs leadership from the masses and those political parties which practise democracy instead of paying lip service to it. This is the only way forward. This should be the only way forward. The era of dynastic politics should come to an end. The sooner it does the better will it be for Pakistan and its struggling democracy.