PPP and historic challenge

For the present, her stance is that without her party's (PPP) reconciliation and sharing power with President Musharraf, US interests in and around Pakistan will not be best served. The articles she has written and statements she issues often sound strangely subservient to the Americans who are held out as the ultimate decision makers in Pakistan. However, her political record in and out of power is also not awe-inspiring. Even so, she remains a factor in Pakistan politics. All said and done, she is the biggest vote puller and her PPP remains the largest party in the country. The PPP is saddled with the duty of explaining so much about its Chairperson.

A Swiss Magistrate's original sentencing of the former Prime Minister and her husband Asif Ali Zardari for laundering tainted money should have been a shattering blow to her Pakistan People's Party. But that does not seem to have hurt it much; the party needs a Bhutto at its head no matter what he or she does. The PPP itself is a great survivor. It is likely to take the taint of corruption on its Chairperson in its stride. In part, corruption in a charismatic leader does not shock Pakistanis the way it does in the West; this results from a civilisational attitude that expects social elites to be above the moral constraints that envelop ordinary folks.

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Nevertheless, despite PPP leaders' expression of disbelief in Judge Devaud's conclusions and despite their campaign to question his integrity or legal competence, the fact is that the case against BB and her husband stands proven. It is unworthy of PPP's lawyers and spokespersons to malign Devaud. After all, he was primarily trying two Swiss companies, namely SGS and Cotechna, along with a Swiss citizen, for malfeasance and infringing Swiss laws, especially about banking. BB and Asif came in as accomplices in, and beneficiaries of, the crimes committed by Swiss persons in terms of Swiss law. BB's and Asif's sentences were consequential.

As for the facts of the case, it is an open and shut case. SGS and Cotechna have paid money; it has been traced; and is now sitting in certain bank accounts that Devaud found belonged to BB and Asif Ali. No one need doubt these facts. One is, however, concerned with the PPP. One has noted that even a Swiss conviction will not seriously affect PPP. In part, the PPP is a peculiar phenomenon. It is perceived to be genuinely concerned with democracy and has no vital links with the military establishment. It survived 1973-74's internal convulsion when the elder Bhutto purged leftists from the party; it bore with fortitude the tough repression by Zia's Martial Law in the 1980s. It came out strengthened because thousands of its workers, served varying terms and thousands were whipped. But none left the party. They are in a class of their own where commitment is concerned.

As noted, the party needs a Bhutto at its head to keep it united. From the party's viewpoint this is a utilitarian necessity. A bit of corruption by that Bhutto is no big deal in Pakistan. So long as the memory of its founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, lives on in this heterogeneous party, it will manage to live on, despite serious heartaches and disillusionments. What went into the making of this party and what its composition today is should be instructive.

Born in Nov 1967 by a bunch of "socialists" with varying ideas of socialism, it went on to win the 1970 general election in what is now the residual Pakistan. After the trauma of 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was vilified by his rightwing opponents for having obviously sided with the generals against the people of East Pakistan. That had no effect on the party. It is extraordinarily ambiguous down to this day: neither sorry for its conduct then nor self-confident enough to boldly defend ZAB's conduct. All it emphasizes is that it truly represented West Pakistan. Therefore it was entitled to rule -- in West Pakistan. PPP assumed a basic rejection of, and disassociation with, East Pakistan even before 1970. Its rank and file accepted this in practice.

The party's glue was the charisma of ZAB and which is why his workers took no notice of his many faults. PPP's original workers were the leftovers of the Left, mostly Mao-loving. Also present were a few secular minded democrats because they had nowhere to go. A large number of PPP workers were extremely anti-Indian and militant Pakistani nationalists, such as Bhutto himself seemed. Bhutto's basic slogans were two: the first was 'Roti, Kapra aur Makan' (bread, clothes and housing); and the second was 'our politics is democratic, our economy is socialism, and our faith is Islam.' In short, all things to all men, especially attractive to the poor for whose benefit he thundered against the rich landlords and capitalists.

PPP thus became a natural home of varied kinds of socialists, simple secular democrats and minorities who found it to be their last refuge; gullible youth flocked to it for the Roti, Kapra aur Makan slogan and found a radical nationalism, with a pinkish tinge, very attractive; the Islamic part of PPP rhetoric sanctified a vague, if not bogus, socialism. Lately, a contradiction has entered and survives: PPP prides itself on being the guarantor of federation in this fractious country. But some Sindhi nationalists, sworn enemies of the present federation, somehow find the attractions of PPP irresistible.

Therein lies the secret of its survival. No other party has such a charismatic leader nor can another leader cater to all these varied constituencies. The "others" are the various Muslim Leagues, all undifferentiated conservatives with hollow slogans of Islam, Pakistani nationalism and militantly anti-India, indeed anti Hindu. All their politics is a quest for ministerships and all of them rely for votes on the tribe, "brathery", caste, sect or some such ethnic detail -- and of course money. Then there are religious parties corresponding to the multiple sectarian divides; they cater to primary religious affiliations to various orthodoxies. Then there are new parties like Millat, Insaf and TI; all these are tailored around their leader's integrity or standing. For the rest, there is a plethora of either regional, nationalist, or self-styled leftist parties with the common belief in four nationalities. A new sort of ethnic nationalist party, MQM, has also emerged in Sindh.

Among this whole lot, the maximum vote pulling capacity still resides in PPP's BB. Can PPP go on like this for a long time to come? It would be odd if, headless as it is today because of BB's compulsion to stay abroad, it continues to survive indefinitely because of its heterogeneity and contradictions. A few questions should illuminate: Is it a party committed to socialism? Is it an anti-imperialist party? Is it an anti-feudal party? Has it a distinctive vision for removing poverty and backwardness from Pakistan? Has it any specific reforms in view? The answer to all these questions is a loud "No".

There are a few other questions. How different in effect will a PPP government be from another run by any Muslim League factions? The answer can only be "scarcely". The party today is as much a galaxy of feudals as are various PMLs and other parties. PPP too is dependent on a leader's personality and her family. Its economic policies were and will be indistinguishable from that of either the military or other PMLs or even mullahs (in essentials). Its total dependence is on the US and the military for power as is the case with other parties. The military denied it power after the October 2002 polls just because it did not like BB; it preferred more subservient turncoats from it and PML(N). What then distinguishes PPP today if we ignore its history? The answer is "nothing"; all parties seem to be chips of the same old timber of a feudalism that is also becoming capitalist.

Does that mean we should be unconcerned with PPP's fate? That may not be advisable. The human material that comprises PPP is unmatchable, except here and there in the small Left-oriented or regional ethnic parties. PPP workers' practical idealism is not found in other conservative parties like the PMLs. True, they are being wasted, are unhappy and downhearted. But where can they go? It is a tragic waste. Something should somehow be done about them. But it is not for outsiders to do it.

All one can say is PPP should cease to be Janus-faced: let the surviving socialists or pinkish nationalists and secular democrats form a party of their own with or without a Bhutto at its head. Let them have a holistic view of democratic politics and agree on social and economic reforms, a non-aligned independent foreign policy and a distinctive programme for fighting poverty. Such a party should be distinguished by its democratic working and well-formulated programme of action.

All the rest can continue in the BB's PPP. They cannot find a more commodious home. BB's leadership is a tried and tested one. There are still a lot of Bhutto lovers who can only be called political Janissaries, especially in Sindh. A BB-led party is sure to survive, though the changing situation around and inside the country will force them, and indeed all, parties to redefine their attitudes to the sole superpower, the IFIs and the Pakistan Army which constitute today's ruling triumvirate. Each party has to define its attitude and place in the political spectrum.

Such a bifurcation of PPP is largely wishful thinking, to be sure. One holds that while the Right is chockfull of parties committed to no significant idea while the Left side of spectrum is virtually empty except for a few stragglers from the old, crushed or barely surviving groups of the Left. Most are politically lame and halt. Conditions in the country are now increasingly acquiring the characteristics that uncommonly remind one of the Latin American countries. This results from pursuing policies that have been dictated by the World Bank and IMF -- as was the case with most Latin American republics. The process should reach an apogee after 2005 when all the WTO rules will be fully implemented. That is the outlook.

How will rightwing parties, both quasi secular and religious, behave in today's volatile social conditions? More of the same is the only likelihood. The challenge is either a Leftist party will provide a path to self-reliant growth and stability or some versions of Peronism will flourish under a crypto-Fascist party. We have perhaps the latter already in BB's PPP but not the former. Aren't there some Pakistanis out there who can rise to this historic challenge?

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.