DESPITE huge political and social changes that have occurred over the last 60 years, electoral politics in Pakistain has remained largely a family enterprise. A limited number of families continue to dominate Pakistain's legislatures, turning them into oligarchies.This stranglehold of a narrow power elite on the country's politics was highlighted by the victory of Abdul Qadir Gilani in the by-election on the seat vacated by his father Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ...
Although the former prime minister himself is barred from holding any public office for five years, his family remains all-powerful, with two of his sons now sitting in the National Assembly and a brother occupying a seat in the Punjab Assembly. Some reports suggest that another of his sons may stand for the Punjab Assembly seat vacated by Qadir Gilani.
The Gilanis are one of the 102 families holding more than 50 per cent of the seats in the federal and provincial legislatures. That says a lot about the state of representative democracy in Pakistain.
A sense of dynastic entitlement dominates the country's political culture, impeding the development of institutional democracy.
| With few exceptions, all the political parties are in fact extensions of powerful families with hereditary leaderships. Their politics mainly revolve around managing and strengthening family interests. Elections are all about gaining control of state patronage. |
Indeed most of Pakistain's political dynasties are rural-based with feudal origins, but over the years families from urban, religious and military backgrounds have also emerged on the political scene.
A part of the post-partition industrialist and business elite, the Sharif family saw its rise in the 1980s during Gen Zia's military rule. Deviating somewhat from the pattern, it draws its strength mainly from the support of the urban mercantile class of Punjab.
However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
despite coming from a completely different social origin and background the Sharifs have fallen into line, sharing a similar feudal-tribal, patrimonial and personality-based style of politics.
Over the past three decades the Bhutto legacy has dominated Pakistain's political scene. After the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent...
the mantle of leadership passed to his daughter Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
But her liquidation in 2007 heralded the rise of a new political dynasty led by her husband Asif Ali Zardari. Besides himself being the country's president, Zardari has two sisters and one brother-in-law who are members of the National Assembly. Furthermore, his sister Faryal Talpur is elected from the Bhutto family seat in Larkana, effectively bringing an end to the Bhutto dynasty.
Not surprisingly, the military, which has ruled Pakistain for most of its existence directly or indirectly, has also been responsible for the entrenchment of dynastic politics. In an effort to legitimise and perpetuate their rule all military rulers have also sought to co-opt powerful political families.
With few exceptions, all the major political dynasties have been a part of successive military regimes to protect their own long-term political interests and receive state patronage. Some of the most powerful political families were in fact propped up by military regimes.
Given its history it did not come as a surprise when the majority of the PML-N leadership switched its allegiance to the military regime soon after the overthrow of the
Nawaz Sharif... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
government in 1999.
Led by Shujaat Hussain, the patriarch of one of the most powerful political dynasties, the dissident faction known as the PML-Q provided political support to Gen Musharraf's military regime. Ironically the group is now a key partner in the present PPP-led coalition government.
In many cases members of the same clan are distributed among different political parties to protect family interests. A case in point is the Magsi family, whose influence extends into both Sindh and Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
Headed by Zulfiqar Magsi, the governor of Balochistan, the family has at least 10 members in the National Assembly, the Senate and the Balochistan and Sindh assemblies. The list includes his children, brothers, sisters and wife, who is a minister in the Balochistan government. Interestingly, they have been elected on either PPP or PML-Q tickets.
The Saifullahs of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
are another powerful political dynasty with members distributed among different political parties. While Salim Saifullah, who recently completed his six-year term in the Senate, is a member of the Likeminded faction of the PML-Q, his younger brother Humayun Saifullah is a sitting PML-Q MNA. His other brother, Anwar Saifullah, who was also a son-in-law of former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, is a PPP member in the KP Assembly.
Anwer Saifullah's son, Osman Saifullah, has recently been elected to the Senate on a PPP ticket from Islamabad. One of his nephews, Jahangir Saifullah, has recently joined Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer...
's Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is
Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
There have been only two instances in the past when established families were defeated in elections. The first was in 1970 when relatively unknown PPP candidates swept away the established political dynasties of Punjab. The sweep was described as a 'revolution through the ballot box'. Ironically, after coming to power Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embraced all those defeated power brokers, transforming the party's composition. A similar routing of political dynasties occurred in 2002 when the MMA, a coalition of Islamic parties, swept the polls in KP. Ordinary local mullahs defeated the all-powerful oligarchs.
The circumstances of the two elections may be completely different, but in both cases this proved to be a temporary phenomenon.
Indeed, various opinion polls indicate a growing public disapproval of the present set-up. The country is ripe for change. But can prevailing public sentiments be translated into a vote against the old order in the coming elections? Or will it be a return of the status quo?