Broken political parties

And how to turn them into proper political institutions

I believe in participating in politics and reforming the system from inside rather than through abrogation of constitution by a usurper or introduction of a technocratic government. It is because of this belief in evolution of politics that I participated in the intra-party elections of PTI, got nominated by District President for a NA seat ticket, and submitted my public nomination for a Senate ticket to the party. On all three accounts, I did not succeed. That should mean either I am a bad politician or that the political parties are broken. I would request you to suspend your judgment until the end of this piece.

The political scientists promote the concept that political parties are an important piece in a Western democratic model. They justify political parties as an efficient tool to form consensus on policy decisions and drafting of legislation. In their view in the absence of political parties, formed to promote certain ideologies, it would be difficult for a house of 342 parliamentarians to arrive at a majority decision. They express fear that in the absence of political platforms individual parliamentarians will be driven by self-interest or narrow special interest of their constituents rather than focus on larger national interest. The mainstay of their argument is that political parties are organisations that are efficient in bringing ideologically link minded people on one platform and seek people’s mandate for it. Islamic political thought proposes a different model but since it is not the subject of this article, I leave it for another time.

The key challenge is that political parties should not be hijacked by the elite of a society to gain control of the political system to seek concentration of economic resources in their hands and protect their assets. This is precisely what has happened in Pakistan. Political parties have become oligarchies controlled by handful of individuals. There are no democratic practices practised by any of the political party, except Jamat-e-Islami. PPP is controlled by Zardari family, PML-N by Sharif brothers, PTI by Imran Khan, JUI-F by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, ANP by Wali Khan family, PPP Sherpao by Sherpao family, MQM by Altaf Hussain, PML-F by Pir Pagara family, APML by General Musharraf and BNP-Mengal by Mengal family.

Almost every party is an expression of ego of an individual or protection of a family enterprise. Because of this control of elite none of the political parties exercise democratic practices and norms. The chiefs of none of these parties consider themselves bound by party constitution or its by-laws. Party activists are always fearful of a repression if they raise their voice. A classic example is the tears of Senator Raza Rabbani when he voted for a bill despite his conscience’s appeal to reject it. In my view he was not shedding tears on that particular bill but his past act in which as leader of a parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms he drafted the 18^th amendment that granted extraordinary powers to party chiefs to terminate members of a party member from parliament in case of defiance.

Let’s look at one more recent example. In the next few weeks provincial parliaments will be voting to elect Senators to serve for six years in the upper house. To award tickets each party announced parliamentary boards that comprise of few individuals that were considered close to party chiefs. None of the party announced the process by which candidates will be selected as well as no criteria was laid out based on which candidates will be evaluated. In one case some of the candidates for Senate were themselves seeking tickets.

There was no effort made by any of the parties to seek recommendations from their larger membership base so that the best among the party are sent to the upper house. In the absence of a proper system to allocate tickets on merit, how can we expect these individuals to serve larger national interest rather than become loyal to a narrow interest of a party chief? There is also news that provincial members are engaging in selling their votes to the highest bidder. Why should we be surprised? These MPAs got party tickets through favours and cronyism so they are behaving exactly the way they are capable of. We can only expect MPAs to vote based on their conscience or ideology when they are themselves sent to the assembly through a process.

This means that the basic premise of political science that justifies the existence of political parties is non-existent in Pakistan. It is because of this systemic issue that our politics is incapable of delivering to the people and stabilising the country. I don’t think the fault is entirely of party chiefs. Political activists and the nation at large are responsible for it as well. Political parties are a reflection of the underlying culture. Our culture is patriarchal in which a figurehead makes all the decisions that are then carried out without questions or dissent. This cultural attitude is anti-thesis to the idea of Khudi, presented by our founding father Allama Iqbal, which empowered the movement for independence. Now again we need to promote Khudi so that we retain the respect for self and are able to raise our voices of dissent to convert political parties into institutions. Our failure to achieve this will keep our politics chaotic, inept and unstable.

I don’t know if you will judge me that I am a failed politician by not securing any material success. But my objective has always been to create internal pressure to reform PTI into an institution rather than allow it to remain a cult of one person. I believe we are making good progress on that. So, in my view, securing ticket was not an end but a step in that direction.