PPP falling between two stools?

The president’s balancing act getting out of balance

The PPP is once again on the horns of a familiar dilemma. It is determined to retain its alliance with the MQM during the forthcoming elections. It simultaneously wants to ensure the loyalty of its Sindhi constituency. The issue that is creating problems is which of the two local bodies systems is to be enforced in Sindh.

With the elections drawing near, both sides have become extraordinarily sensitive. Demands have been put up for local bodies polls both by the MQM and the Sindh chapter of the PPP. Zardari has promised that local bodies would be in place before the general elections. The population of Sindh meanwhile remains polarized.

Last year, the decision by the Sindh government to reject the Musharraf era model and introduce the pre-1999 system led to the resignation of all MQM ministers from the both federal and Sindh cabinets. Governor Ishratul Ibad also quit his post and left for London. To placate the MQM and simultaneously retain the Sindhi vote bank, Babar Awan was sent to announce Zardari’s disingenuous formula: Musharraf model for the major urban centers and the old system for interior Sindh. This led to a situation Zardari had never expected.

This announcement was considered by many Sindhis as the first step in a conspiracy aimed at dividing the province. Sindh was aflame. Nationalist parties and ANP reacted furiously. Smaller opposition groups joined them. The new front not only managed to close down business centers in the interior but also staged a large rally in Karachi which the MQM had never expected. Agitated nationalist activists led protest marches to the houses of the PPP ministers, calling them traitors. The Zardari formula had to be withdrawn. .

Sindhis have a bitter experience of the devolution of power introduced by Perevez Musharraf. For them the experiment turned out be a double-edged sword harming the interests of those in the rural areas as well as those in the urban centers. In rural Sindh, the 2001 local government system put the population at the mercy of the local elite. The common man was deprived of whatever little justice he could occasionally get from a supposedly professional and neutral bureaucracy. With the local wadera put in control of police, the people had no hope of justice. As numerous provincial departments were devolved to the district governments, thousands jobs were either sold out or handed over to cronies by the powerful men who controlled the system. Merit was no consideration.

MQM which took over the city district governments in big urban centers like Karachi and Hyderabad treated the Sindhis as aliens. After the party took over Karachi city district government in 2005, it practiced widespread discrimination against both the Sindhis and Pushtuns. A number of old Sindhi Goths were declared unauthorised habitations and the residents forcibly evacuated. Sindhis living in Karachi for years were refused the domicile as their ID cards often bore an interior Sindh address. They were required to get an NCO from the CDG to be eligible to compete for a job. The number of Sindhi students in Karachi universities decreased. To be treated like this in the principal city of his own province by those who still called themselves Mohajirs was unbearable for the common Sindhi.

With MQM joining hands with Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler had compensated the ethnic outfit with two extra measures that strengthened its hold over urban Sindh.

One was the merger of the five district of Karachi into one mega administrative unit and the other the break up of population wise much smaller districts of the province to provide MQM an edge over the Sindhi and Pushtu speaking population.

Keeping in view its unmanageable size, Karachi had been divided in 1996 into five districts, each with a municipal corporation of its own. The idea was to allow people from various ethnic backgrounds to manage their own affairs. Come 2001, Musharraf amalgamated the five towns into a single administrative unit having a population of about 15-18 million.

While five towns of Karachi were merged together to form a single city district, four districts in the interior of the province with population ranging merely from 2 million to 600,000 were split up o create new districts in 2004. Later, in Hyderabad, the principal historical city of the province, four dominantly Sindhi speaking Taluqas were carved out and turned into separate districts, which considerably increased the MQM’s stronghold on the city.

This explains why the Sindhis strongly oppose the imposition of 2001 local government system. The Sindh chapter of the PPP, therefore, wants the revival of the old commissionerate system, restoration of five districts of Karachi and the withdrawal of certain functions assigned to the local governments under the former military dictator`s devolution of power system.

Contrarily, the MQM wants empowered local governments, opposes the restoration of five districts of Karachi and the commissionerate system and demands that the police and land control be also handed over to the local governments. With a hold on police, the MQM hopes to be able to impose its will on other ethnic groups and straighten out political opponents. With revenue department at its disposal, the party hopes to raise billions that would fill its coffers through allotment or lease of costly land at the city government’s disposal.

In July-August 2011 the PPP tried to find a middle way. It failed. Will Zardari be able to come up this time with a new plan that suits both the MQM and its opponents?

Whatever has been suggested so far is a non-starter. For instance, the proposal to implement the Musharraf system in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Larkana and Sukkur would be opposed by the critics on the ground that it lays the foundations of the division of Sindh into an MQM dominated urban part and an under developed rural hinterland handed over to the sons of the soil . This would be the realization of the slogan “Cities for us, jungles for them,” raised by some unruly supporters of the Mohajir province in Karachi early this year.

What will Zardari do if he is fails to find a formula acceptable to both sides? It all depends on what suits him more politically. His electoral strategy depends on keeping his erstwhile allies in the fold, MQM being high on the list. Despite strong opposition from Sindh, Zardari still tends to take his Sindhi voters for granted. He poses as the natural heir of the mantle of Shaheed Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir. He believes that being the father of Bilawal adds further to his credentials in Sindh.

Will the strategy work? Or will Zadari fall between the two tools as he tries to practice the impossible trick of keeping the irreconcilable sides together under his command?

The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.