The Arrow Once More?

By Amir Zia

Monthly Newsline

July 2018

PPP critics predict some nasty surprises for the party in the 2018 elections, but given the track record and the absence of an effective leadership within the opposition, it is likely to win Sindh for the third time in a row, albeit with a slashed number of seats.

Who will be the overall frontrunner in the 2018 general elections from Sindh? The answer to this question is obvious – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Despite all the allegations of corruption and grievances against a decade of poor governance and misrule, the PPP seems in control of the electoral battlefield of Sindh — its traditional stronghold.

It is not just the Bhutto name that still casts its spell; the dominance of the PPP in the second-tier cities and rural parts of Sindh is also due to the fact that there appears to be no effective alternate leadership to pose a serious challenge to the party.

The entry of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PPP’s young chairman, in the electoral field for the first time is also expected to give a boost to the PPP in most parts of Sindh.  

Another factor which the PPP hopes will help it not only maintain its grip but extend its gains as well in Election 2018, compared to 2013, is the inclusion of electable candidates – read powerful landlords – in the party. “It may not go down well with the PPP’s ideological old-guards, but Asif Ali Zardari sahib (former president and co-chairman of the PPP) himself took the lead to bring powerful feudal lords within the party fold to ensure seats for the party in the coming elections,” said a PPP insider requesting anonymity.  

The third factor, which is likely to help the PPP’s bid for a third consecutive term to form the provincial government in Sindh and send members to the National Assembly, is its influence over the civil administration. Although there is a caretaker set-up, the neutrality of many administrative officers remains doubtful because they have been cultivated and supported during the past two terms of the PPP. All this gives a huge edge to the PPP.  

However, at least on paper, there are some big names and forces, including the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), trying to challenge the PPP in its bastion of power, but the prospect of their candidates giving a tough fight in the elections, barring a few districts, appears bleak. 

“There is a strong negative sentiment against the PPP because of its poor performance, but the GDA has failed to capitalise on this discontent,” says Dr. Jabbar Khattak, chief editor and publisher of the leading Sindh-language daily, Awami Awaz. “The anger against the PPP won’t transform into a wave because of the lack of leadership.”

The GDA comprises traditional anti-PPP forces including Pir Pagara’s Pakistan Muslim League-Functional; Ayaz Latif Palijo’s Qaumi Awami Tehreek; the PPP’s Workers’ faction led by Naheed Khan and her spouse, Dr. Safdar Abbasi; Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi’s National Peoples’ Party and Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s Peoples’ Muslim League. Along with these groups, there are individuals like the powerful landlord Ali Gohar Mahar in Ghotki and PPP dissidents, Dr. Zulfikar and Fehmida Mirza in Badin and several others in various constituencies, who are supporting the GDA. Some Sindhi nationalists, including Jalal Mohammed Shah, are also in alliance with the GDA in select constituencies, along with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. 

Ayaz Latif Palijo, the secretary general of the GDA, claimed that the anti-PPP alliance would form the provincial government in Sindh. “Out of 25 districts in Sindh, the GDA has a clear edge in at least 18,” he said while talking to Newsline. “In Umerkot, Thar, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Sanghar, Naushero Feroze, Shikarpur, Ghotki, Dadu and Jacobabad, we have a clear edge, while in Nawabshah, Sukkur, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Tando Allahyar and Hala we expect a neck-to-neck fight,” he said.

However, GDA detractors say that these great expectations do not reflect the ground reality.

According to Dr. Jabbar Khattak, the GDA secretary-general, Ayaz Palijo, himself does not have a solid constituency. “The GDA comprises the same forces which failed to make any impact in the past… the PTI factor has a nominal presence in Sindh. Only Liaquat Jatoi and Shah Mehmood Qureshi are the two serious PTI candidates in rural Sindh,” he said. “The parties and individuals comprising GDA have a few pockets and can act as a pressure group but their presence is confined to holding small demonstrations and issuing press statements.”

In the 2013 general elections, the PPP bagged 32 National Assembly seats out of 60, while the parties comprising GDA and its allies got just eight, including PTI’s lone seat from Karachi. MQM won 18 seats and one seat was won by the PML-N. For the provincial assembly elections, the PPP got 94 seats in a house of 168, while the parties within the GDA and its allies secured a total of 15 seats including the reserved seats for women and the religious minorities. The MQM and the PML-N won 50 and seven seats respectively.

In the 2008 elections, PPP won 33 National Assembly seats, while the parties now comprising GDA and its allies won four. In those elections the MQM bagged 19 seats, while four seats went to PML-Q. In the provincial assembly, the PPP got 90 seats, while parties comprising GDA and its allies secured 11 seats. The MQM, PML-Q and ANP won 50, 11 and two seats respectively. 

Khattak maintains that despite the PPP’s abysmal performance, its opposition stands on a much weaker wicket. “For instance, the stature of the current Pir Pagara is not that of his father. There are differences even within the Pagara family. Unlike his father, who was good at bringing notables together, the current Pir of Pagara lacks this capacity also… And let’s not forget that even the senior Pir Pagara was defeated in the 1988 elections by PPP’s Pervez Ali Shah,” he said. “The GDA is an alliance of convenience, which has many aspirants for the chief ministership of the province. Moreover, the PPP has a far better organisational structure compared to its rivals in rural Sindh and will be able to bring in voters on election day.”

But journalist and analyst, Manzoor Sheikh, who is affiliated with Mehran TV, maintains that the anti-PPP forces in Sindh are expected to perform better than in the last election. “GDA has emerged as an important faction and anti-PPP forces are in a position to dominate at least seven to eight districts and give a tough fight in several others. There have been new political alignments and some powerful families which once supported the PPP, now stand on the other side. I see an anti-PPP tide in Badin, Tando Jam, Tando Allahyar, Naushero Feroze and Khairpur. I see tough competition in Sukkur as well where PPP’s Khursheed Shah is running for a National Assembly seat, while his son and nephew are campaigning for two provincial assembly seats which has created resentment among the people.”  However, said Sheikh, “The Bilawal factor has been overplayed as people know that he is not in charge of the party.” 

In a surprising development, a number of PPP candidates, including Nisar Khuhro, Naveed Qamar and Murad Ali Shah, were either manhandled or aggressively questioned by their constituents when they visited their constituencies. Even Bilawal was not spared when he visited Lyari; his convoy was stoned. A sign of the times perhaps, underlining a growing awareness among the voters who expect their representatives to perform.

PPP critics predict some nasty surprises for the party in the 2018 elections, but given the track record and the absence of an effective leadership within the opposition, it is likely to win Sindh for the third time in a row, albeit with a slashed number of seats.

The Apology We Need

By Amir Zia
October 6, 2014
The News

To make his mark, Bilawal has to get rid of the wall not just around Bilawal House but also the walls of corruption and greed around himself and his party. 

On September 28 the PPP’s young chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, in an open letter to his estranged party supporters, apologised for all past mistakes and promised corrective measures to regain their confidence. 
Although Bilawal avoided listing those mistakes which forced him to issue this personal apology, it is indeed a bold and courageous statement by the scion of the Bhutto-Zardari family, who celebrated his 26th birthday only last month. This is perhaps too tender an age to jump into the hurly-burly of politics and take responsibility for all those mega-mistakes that are certainly not of his doing. But then Bilawal appears as the last bet for the PPP to revive its waning political fortunes – thanks to its last stint in power at the centre and continuing poor governance, mismanagement, misrule and allegations of corruption in Sindh where it has been holding power since 2008.
Unlike his mother, Benazir Bhutto, who also joined Pakistan’s political fray and was in and out of prisons when she was also in her mid-to-late 20s, Bilawal has a far steeper challenge ahead of him. At least Benazir Bhutto did not carry any political baggage that tied her party to corruption, greed and financial scandals when she took its charge, though she confronted a far ruthless rival in the form of General Ziaul Haq and his civilian allies.
Today, the PPP’s biggest nemesis is not some General Ziaul Haq, but its own actions and poor performance record, which have eroded its popularity. The last general elections reduced the PPP mainly to rural Sindh. The party was not even a close number two in the other three provinces in the electoral race, losing its place to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and other parties.
The public perception about the PPP under the stewardship of Asif Ali Zardari overwhelmingly remains negative. During the previous five-year rule, he only managed to consolidate his reputation as a wily politician, but was unable to shrug-off the stigma or his love of dubious deals, financial scandals and nepotism which even now are reflected in the way the Sindh provincial government is being run.
Bilawal would have done himself and his party a favour if he had, in his apology, identified and listed at least some of those mistakes that disillusioned many of they party’s voters and supporters. The first step towards self-correction starts from honest self-criticism. His promise of ‘rectifying’ those mistakes may appear hallow because he evaded articulating them.
He can come up with another detailed self-critical note on his party’s failings and indicate a way forward and a departure from his father’s style of politics. His much-propagated October 18 rally in Karachi can be the day when according to his party stalwarts Bilawal takes charge.
But realistically speaking, such chances are dim. One can only hope against hope that young Bilawal will be able to come out of the shadow of his father and many political ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ with the sway of some magic wand. The PPP of today is too big an enterprise now that it has tied itself with all sorts of vested political and financial interests.
Nevertheless, Bilawal could still take some baby steps in the right direction by offering a sincere apology first to the people of Sindh, who have stood by his party through thick and thin and in return got the gift of Syed Qaim Ali Shah and his continuous rule.
If the PPP’s young chairman has his fingers on the pulse of Sindh politics, he should have known by now that it is one of the most inefficient and ineffective provincial governments – recognised more for its apathy towards the issues of the common man and poor governance than anything else.
The list of the PPP’s mistakes of omission and commission is certainly a long one, but here are some innocent pointers that can make at least a good beginning.
First of all, Bilawal should apologise to the people of Sindh for the overall bad governance and the alleged rampant corruption which have become a synonym for the PPP. Be it fighting crime, providing education, better healthcare or even distributing relief goods to the flood-hit or drought-stricken people, the PPP has been found wanting on all fronts.
The first step to rectify the governance problem in Sindh could be holding the local bodies elections which devolve power to the district and union level. Bilawal should apologise on behalf of his party for not holding local government elections and ensure that they take place sooner than later.
Among many other slips committed by his party, Bilawal should pick up the thread by tendering an apology to the people of Tharparkar – the most backward district of Sindh – where more than 100 children died due to acute malnutrition and disease during the recent drought as the provincial government even failed to distribute allocated relief on time. 
According a SPDI report, the number of people living below the poverty line stands at 47 percent in Tharparkar, the highest in Sindh. Many of the other districts of Sindh paint a similar grim picture with incidence of poverty at 42 percent in Badin, 41 percent in Tando Mohammed Khan, 40 percent in Thatta, and 39 percent in Nawabshah and 38 percent in Larkana. Most of these districts remain a solid vote bank of the PPP, but they all lag behind in all the key social indicators – from health to education. 
These major districts of Sindh are also far behind when it comes to infrastructure and basic provision of civic amenities – from clean drinking water to the sewerage systems.
Bilawal must ask the gurus of the Sindh government why even places like Larkana – the hometown of the Bhuttos – and Nawabshah, his father’s hometown, continue to remain backward dustbowls with potholed, bumpy roads compared to many of the cities and towns of similar size in Punjab and even Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Why, after more than six years of continuous rule in Sindh, has the PPP failed to lift any of these districts to the status of model towns with the seal of his party’s development work?
Bilawal should also apologise to the people of Sindh for more than 6,000 non-functional and ghost schools – one of the biggest source of corruption and money-making for the PPP’s education czars and their lackeys. They have ensured that every seventh school in the province remains non-functional. The PPP will face no opposition from any quarter – barring vested interests within its own ranks – if it wants to make these schools functional again.
The people of Lyari also deserve an apology from Bilawal. This is one locality in Karachi that has remained the stronghold of his party from day one. Bilawal should apologise to Lyariites for the folly of his party seniors, including Zulfikar Mirza, for unleashing gangs of criminals in this neighbourhood, if not for failing to bring development, education and employment here. 
Thanks to the ill-conceived ‘policy’ – if it can be called one – of patronising gangsters and awarding party tickets for the 2013 elections on their dictates, the PPP has seen its political base eroding even in this support base. Can we imagine the PPP under Benazir or Zulfikar Ali Bhutto taking such a wrong turn? Can Bilawal rectify this?
Although Karachi is not the city where the PPP looks for mass support, yet it can initiate a few symbolic steps to create a feel good factor and invest for the future. Here, Bilawal can ask the talented Sharjeel Memon to at least confront the water and billboard mafias that are thriving right under his nose.
The list of the PPP’s mistakes can go on and on – from shady appointments and transfers in the police to its tango with mega-property developers. Young Bilawal cannot confront them all on day one. But he has to make a beginning. To make his mark, Bilawal has to get rid of the wall not just around Bilawal House but also the walls of corruption and greed around himself and his party. 

The Crisis Of Leadership

By Amir Zia 
Feb 10, 2014
The News

Among all the challenges, the rapid erosion in the writ of the state against the backdrop of the growing and expanding influence of violent non-state actors should be the biggest cause of concern for both civilian and military leaders. The continued weakening of the writ of the state has all the potential to throw Pakistan into the deadly vortex of strife and civil war. 


Last year, many Pakistanis were celebrating the country’s first democratic transition from one elected government to another with a lot of hope and optimism. Today, many are wondering whether our elected representatives have the capacity and ability to grasp and deal with the grave challenges that threaten the very existence of the state and the society.
The signs of time are depressingly telling, while the response to the life and death issues faced by the nation remains weak and meek. The elected representatives seem to lack the vision, commitment, courage and integrity needed to confront any of the challenges faced by the country – from the issue of terrorism to that of a crumbling economy and the crisis of governance.
Among all the challenges, the rapid erosion in the writ of the state against the backdrop of the growing and expanding influence of violent non-state actors in recent months should be the biggest cause of concern for both civilian and military leaders. The continued weakening of the writ of the state has all the potential to throw Pakistan into the deadly vortex of strife and civil war.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government has embarked on a dangerous course by accepting the Al-Qaeda linked local Taliban as a ‘legitimate’ stakeholder in the country and starting negotiations with their nominated committee. This move is all set to further weaken the state and its writ as it has allowed the Taliban and their sympathisers to dictate the agenda of political discourse and set the national narrative that has all the deadly ingredients to further polarise and divide the people on religious grounds. To their credit, the Taliban have always made it explicitly clear that they want to change the structure of the Pakistani state and scrap its constitution in line with their interpretation of Islam.
Even the outcome of the first round of the so-called ‘peace talks’ between the government- and the Taliban-nominated committees makes it evident what one should expect from this controversial process and how these non-state actors want to use it to their advantage.
The core issue of these talks, according to one of the Taliban committee members, Maulana Abdul Aziz of the Lal Masjid, should be the ‘implementation of Shariah’ rather than terrorism. The Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid has backed Maulana Aziz’s stand by saying that talks would only be held under the Quran and Sunnah.
With just one master-stroke, the Taliban successfully managed to (or should we say allowed to) shift the focus of talks and sidetrack the real issue of religiously motivated violence and terrorism. The Taliban note of dissent came when the echo of the official statement issued after the first round of talks had not even died down.
The government-nominated team hardly managed to bring the issue of all the suicide bombings and killings of innocent civilians and the security personnel into the focus. It seems that the Pakistani state and its institutions are being tried and held accountable rather than the terrorists who are responsible for more than 50,000 deaths since early 2002. 
Ironically, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and their respective allies have helped the Taliban achieve this upper hand both in negotiations and conflict. These mainstream political forces begged, pleaded and argued in favour of talks for months – deliberately ignoring the complexity and gravity of the challenge of extremism and terrorism and how it threatens the entire fabric of the society. 
The other major political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party, appear divided and confused, failing to create any forceful alternate voice. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari does tweet aggressively against the Taliban, but his parliamentary party leader and other stalwarts definitely are on a different plane. 
In a nutshell, in the name of national consensus and so-called peace, the elected civilian leaders are all set to surrender the country to violent non-state actors. This strategy (if it can be called one) gives a loud and clear message that our weak-kneed government will yield to any terrorist group that raises weapons against the state and has the determination to kill and get killed for its mission.
Welcome to the Pakistan of 2014 where civilian leaders are ready to forget and forgive all the heinous crimes and mass murders carried out by non-state actors like the Taliban. 
And now compare this to the former British premier Margaret Thatcher’s iron resolve who once said; “To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes…”
What great cause could be served, fought and won under the banner of so-called national consensus as advocated and interpreted by most of our civilian leaders? This only shows that none of them is ready to take the responsibility or has the guts to fight for his beliefs.
Our civilian leaders seem ignorant of the fact that a bad peace is even worse than a war. There are times in history when the only option available is to fight a war that has been imposed on a nation. And wars cannot be won without fighting. The policy of appeasing non-state actors has never worked in any country – from neighbouring India to Sri Lanka. 
The Indians dealt with all insurgencies – from Kashmir to East Punjab and Assam to Manipur – with an iron hand. Our Sri Lankan friends did the same while crushing the Tamil fighters, as did Saudi Arabia in the bloody siege of Mecca in 1979. The so-called fervour of the Islamic militants holed in the Masjid al-Haram did not deter the Saudis from taking decisive action against them.
There are many other such instances in modern history where courageous and determined leadership successfully managed to crush those who raised arms against the state.
But not so in Pakistan under the present set of civilian rulers. If the former PPP government dillydallied in taking ownership of the war against terrorists and left it only to the khakis to deal with the challenge, the Sharif government seems all set to handover Pakistan to the militants on a silver platter.
Perhaps, this is the short-cut Sharif has selected in an attempt to impose his style of Shariah, which once he wanted to do in 1999 and become the ameerul momineen. At that time his aspirations were cut short by the bloodless military coup of October 1999. Sharif seems to have picked up the thread from where he left it last, perhaps believing his road is now open and clear.
But aren’t our civilian lords and masters playing with fire. Aren’t they putting the country at stake by appeasing the militants and trying to cut unholy deals with them?
In politics, often a right decision becomes wrong if taken after too much delay. And here, it is the ‘tragedy of delay’ that is costing Pakistan dearly. Pakistan’s armed forces have all the capacity, courage and resolve to overcome this existentialist internal threat. The only thing the country needs is a courageous and determined leadership. Is there any elected civilian leader who can take up the gauntlet? The landscape appears too barren.

No Child’s Play

By Amir Zia
Monday, October 21, 2013
The News
 
Those looking for a statesman-like speech from young Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari must adjust their great expectations with today’s reality of the Asif Ali Zardari-led PPP.... The civilian leadership has yet to offer a knight in shining armour, who can fight the case for a progressive, modern and stable Pakistan
 
The October 18 speech of Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has raised a lot of eyebrows and brought frowns on many faces. The way the young Bhutto-Zardari scoffed at his party’s traditional and not-so-traditional political rivals has been seen to be in bad taste by many of the ardent critics of the PPP and its leadership. While the diehard PPP supporters looked for glimpses of their slain leader Benazir Bhutto’s charisma, traits and flair in Bilawal as he spoke at Karachi’s Karsaz traffic junction where the convoy of his mother was hit by twin bombings that killed 176 people the same day six years ago, the hair-splitters focused on the content, message and tone of the speech. And in a way, Bilawal provided fuel to the imaginations of both his critics and admirers.
The PPP chairman’s metaphors of hunting down the lion, freeing the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the destructive hold of the tsunami and snapping the string of the kite hovering over Karachi skies by telephone from London could indeed sound provocative and a bit rash to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of the core PPP supporters who stood loyal to the tricolour flag of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s party, particularly in rural Sindh, through thick and thin – regardless of how it performed when in power. 
Bilawal – as many other Pakistani politicians remains so fond of doing – not just dabbled in verbosity but deliberately tried to stoke up controversy in this first major speech after turning 25 last month; this makes him eligible to contest elections. In the game of politics, attempts to grab attention by being controversial remain a fair deal. Let’s think of a major name in Pakistani politics who has not committed this ‘sin’. So let’s shun ‘holier-than-thou’ approach.
Those looking for a statesman-like speech from this youngster must also adjust their great expectations with today’s reality of the Asif Ali Zardari-led PPP. The former ruling party has a long, long way to go if it wants to revive its deeply eroded political fortunes. The process involves an intellectually honest review and criticism of the party’s past five-year performance. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be on the agenda of its young or old leadership.
However, if one must grab and cling to some straws then Bilawal’s assertion of declaring jihad (holy war) against the “hijackers of the faith” and fighting the extremist forces should offer some hope to the PPP’s traditional liberal and secular vote bank. These were brave words from a youngster who lost his mother under tragic circumstances at the hands of these misguided hard-line Islamists with whom the entire civilian leadership, including the PPP which attended the government-sponsored APC of September 9, appeared willing and desperate to talk.
Should we now expect the PPP to take a clearer and bolder stand on confronting the challenge of extremism and terrorism that plagues the country and has claimed more than 50,000 lives since the US-led war on terror started in neighbouring Afghanistan in late 2001? Let’s hope that Bilawal, with the blessings and permission of his father Asif Ali Zardari, manages to bring clarity on this make-or-break issue for the country – a clarity that was found lacking during his party’s last stint in power.
Bilawal must ponder hard over why his party failed to provide a counter narrative to that of the Al-Qaeda-inspired and linked local extremists, who killed his mother and some top leaders of the party. Why did the PPP fail to lead and take ownership of the war on terror despite the army’s willingness to do so when it was in power? Many Pakistanis expected this from the PPP along with relatively clean and efficient governance. But the PPP failed on both these counts.
Will the PPP in opposition manage to put the challenge of extremism and terrorism in the right perspective and snatch the initiative from apologists of the local Taliban including Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Munawar Hasan? So far, the PPP has not been able to do so or come up with a counter narrative to that of hard-line Islamists and their backers.
If Bilawal manages to pursue his ‘holy war’ against those who, in his own words, ‘abuse Islam’ it could prove a watershed in Pakistani politics. This issue alone would define both the future of Pakistan and PPP’s politics. Since all the major centre and right-wing political parties – the PML-N, the PTI, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and the Jamaat-e-Islami – are for the outright appeasement of terrorists and extremists, any firmer and bolder stance against these forces could prove to be a game-changer and fill the political void against the backdrop of the one-sided pro-talks and pro-Taliban narrative.
Imran Khan and his like appear hell-bent to undermine the state and its institutions when they beg and plead for talks with the local Taliban after every fresh incident of terrorism. They want the state institutions to allow these non-state actors to open offices as they urge these terrorists and murderers to stop bombings on humanitarian grounds. Yes, the PTI refuses to learn and correct itself despite the killing of its three lawmakers, including the latest assassination of provincial law minister Israrullah Gandapur in a suicide attack on the occasion of Eidul Azha.
The PPP can lead this fight on ideological grounds. It has all the right ingredients to do so and will find many allies in the vast civil society, anti-Taliban political parties and even the armed forces. The only thing the party lacks is leadership and vision. Should Bilawal, at the politically tender age of 25, be able to pull it off? Are we expecting and asking too much from him and a party that failed to do this when it was in power? There are reasons for us to be sceptical.
Even if the PPP leadership turns over a new leaf (can this miracle happen?), becomes slightly honest, and ready to address some of its past mistakes, throwing down a gauntlet to extremists and terrorists and their cheerleaders in the mainstream political parties won’t prove to be child’s play. This conflict is not for the faint-hearted. It requires courageous, upright, committed and visionary leadership – qualities which appear lacking in PPP’s current top- and first-tier leaders.
Bilawal has giant challenges and internal dilemmas weighing on his inexperienced and young shoulders. The hereditary democracy of South Asia – where the right to lead and rule is often passed from one generation to another, or from husband to widow or wife to husband – itself often proves the biggest obstacle for the political parties in providing competent, efficient and honest leadership. 
Yet, South Asia, including Pakistan, remains far from being out of the clutches of hereditary politics in which personalities overshadow most issues including ideology. Therefore, Bilawal appears all set to rule one of Pakistan’s major political parties and represent the most dynamic political dynasties. It would be largely up to him how he grows or diminishes in this job. The choices he makes and the roads he takes will not just define his own politics, but will also impact the country. Let’s keep our fingers crossed…Let’s hope that Bilawal makes a difference for the better for this wretched country that is in the throes of a make-or-break conflict with extremists. The only irony is that the civilian leadership has yet to offer a knight in shining armour who can fight the case for a progressive, modern and stable Pakistan that remains at peace with itself, its neighbours and the world.

 

The Bilawal Wall

By Amir Zia
The News
June 10, 2013

Are we forever fated to have these Bilawal Walls surround us? Is there no escape from them? Is it too cynical to demand that all rulers, the high and mighty and their protectors, move out of city centres and densely populated civilian areas and live where they are away from the evil eye and real or imaginary dangers?  


It is not as grand and imposing as the Great Wall of China or as menacing and oppressive as the Berlin Wall used to be. But for many citizens of Karachi, this half-a-kilometre-long wall protecting Bilawal House remains one of the greatest banes in their lives.
Although it has not been officially baptised, a large number of ordinary citizens living in nearby apartments and houses, operating shops and businesses in its vicinity or commuting under its shadow, calls this fortification ‘the Bilawal Wall’.
They have seen this wall emerge as a permanent encroachment on the wide two-way Khayaban-e-Saadi during the previous Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led government and transform into a protective buffer at the Karachi residence of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Now one of the narrow service lanes running parallel to Khayaban-e-Saadi has become the so-called two-way main road for commuters. The authorities have tried to broaden the service lane at places by merging the parking space and green belt into it, but this ingenuity has created even more issues. Property prices around Bilawal House have taken a beating compared with other localities in the same Clifton neighbourhood. Many shopkeepers in the area have been forced to close down their businesses, while others have witnessed a drop in sales due to the obstructions in traffic here.
When President Zardari visits Karachi, as he did earlier this month, the security shadow of the Bilawal Wall expands and results in the blockade of all key roads and roundabouts within the radius of up to two kilometres by iron containers, trucks and police vehicles.
All the while the president is in the city, the permanent and temporary Bilawal Walls turn reaching one’s own home into an ordeal – and forces businesses and shops to close. These walls even prevent patients from visiting the key hospitals and medical centres that are located nearby including the Ziauddin Hospital, where Zardari once spent a considerable amount of time as a prisoner in a room declared a sub-jail during his multiple trials on corruption and murder charges.
If President Zardari is in a kind mood, he orders the lifting of the temporary Bilawal Wall as he did last week after great media and public uproar. If not, people just suffer and continue to pray for the long life and well-being of their tormentors.
True to overwhelming Pakistani spirit, the permanent Bilawal Wall emerged not as part of any well thought-out plan, but started in bits and pieces. During the initial days of the previous PPP rule, one part of the two-way main road running parallel to Bilawal House used to be cordoned off by innocent-looking traffic barricades. This usually happened when Zardari graced the city with his presence. Soon after, the temporary barricades became a permanent fixture – shutting one part of the two-way road for good.
Real and imagined security concerns then led to the construction of an iron-grill right in the middle of the green belt that divides the Khayaban-e-Saadi. This was followed by the closure of the entire Khayaban on a permanent basis for ordinary Pakistanis as authorities quickly constructed the concrete wall – complete with iron spikes and barbed wires on top. Thus a new eyesore and cause of perpetual public inconvenience was added to Karachi’s already disfigured and mutilated landscape.
The security concerns of the post-9/11 world may be a justifiable reason for Zardari, his security managers and loyalists to build iron grills and walls around Bilawal House – especially when the PPP lost its charismatic leader, Benazir Bhutto, in a grenade and gun attack in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. Earlier, on October 18, 2007, Bhutto survived a massive attack on her motorcade when she landed in Karachi, ending a more than eight-year self-imposed exile.
Given the history of tragic incidents the Bhutto family suffered as a price of its politics, the extra-cautious approach toward safety is understandable. Pakistan can now ill-afford any other tragedy such as the killing of a frontline politician, but while making Karachi’s Bilawal House impregnable, perhaps Zardari and Co. have gone overboard.
This very important house is not located right on the main road. Its main building has the necessary ‘depth’ as the service road adjacent to it remains closed for traffic. The place has been further fortified by the tight security at its entry points, while many of the prized neighbourhood properties are now also in the hands of the friends and family of President Zardari or his associates.
The irony in all this remains that the young Bilawal Bhutto Zardari whose name is perhaps unnecessarily being blotted – at least in the metaphorical sense – by such measures might have no say in these affairs at all. The naming of Bilawal Chowrangi, the construction of the Bilawal Wall or the extension of Bilawal House are all being done in his name just as the PPP’s policymaking and politics bears his signboard. Giving Bilawal the benefit of the doubt, this remains a far from ideal situation for the young man, who probably aspires to prove himself as the true heir to the legacy of his illustrious maternal grandfather and mother.
Let alone the hue and cry from residents of the area, even the Supreme Court’s concerns regarding the Bilawal Wall failed to move the provincial authorities, which insist that citizens’ rights are not being violated by blocking one of the key roads of Karachi.
Though Zardari’s term as president ends in September, there appear little chances that the authorities have any plans to tear down the Bilawal Wall. Being the former president and leader of a party that still rules Sindh, Zardari and his Karachi residence appear all set to continue receiving a privileged treatment. After another couple of years, perhaps we will take Bilawal Wall as part of our fate and forget all about the broad two-way road at this unlucky place, which once provided a free and open access to the seafront.
But Zardari and his near and dear ones are not the only ones who hide behind such walls. It is a syndrome that has caught the imagination of all the rich and powerful in this land of the pure. Every high and mighty individual or institution loves to have their very own Bilawal Wall.
Sindh’s octogenarian Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has his own wall, which he constructs and removes almost on a daily basis, outside his official residence without any warning to commuters. This wall, made of iron containers, concrete blocks and ordinary traffic barriers keeps the road regularly closed off at night, often for days, because of unspecified security threat without any prior warning or explanation. The official residence of the chief minister is deep inside the compound and surrounded by a huge wall. The noise of the motor rickshaw can hardly disturb Shah’s sleep during the night and even a suicide bomber hardly poses a security threat. The road, however, still remains closed, more often than open, to traffic.
Our paramilitary rangers, the coast guards, the customs, the police...you name it. All have built their own tiny Bilawal Walls that have encroached footpaths, sections of the roads and public places – all in the name of security. The very presence of these mighty individuals and institutions in the heart of the city not just hinders free flow of traffic and movement of pedestrians, but also exposes citizens to danger.
Are we forever fated to have these Bilawal Walls surround us? Is there no escape from them? Is it too cynical to demand that all rulers, the high and mighty and their protectors, move out of city centres and densely populated civilian areas and live where they are away from the evil eye and real or imaginary dangers? Their proximity only brings inconvenience, trouble and distress to the common citizen. The 2013 elections have hardly been a game-changer when it comes to these Bilawal Walls. They seem to be here to stay for the foreseeable future.

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.