The fall of the PPP, the rise of the PTI

Will we ever be able to understand how the PTI was able to steal a good chunk of the PPP’s vote bank? Why did loyal voters of a left of centre party, whose leader had been assassinated by the Taliban, abruptly desert their political organisation and switch to a right of centre party whose leader was thought to be a Taliban apologist?

Till the 2008 elections, PPP voters had stayed loyal to their party for four decades though the world around and the party itself had changed beyond recognition. Benazir Bhutto had been able to give voice to the aspirations of the poor – through rhetoric at least if policy. For active party workers – the jiyalas – the PPP was a cult of martyrs leading resistance to the status quo.

In 2007, the baton of the PPP’s leadership shifted from a leader whose charisma transcended national boundaries to her husband who happened to be one of the most maligned persons in the country. However, this shift did not hinder the party from winning 2008 elections, in which people largely voted in the name of the slain leader.

In the 2008 elections, the PPP won 31 percent votes. The PTI boycotted these elections but in the last two elections it had gained 1.5 percent and 0.7 percent votes. In the next general elections held in 2013, the PPP was down to 15 percent votes while the PTI was able to bag no less than 17 percent votes. The Awami National party’s vote bank also shrunk from two percent to one percent. However, the PML-N’s vote bank increased from 23 percent to 33 percent. The PTI’s gains in these elections appear proportional to the PPP’s loss.

The shift in percentages tells only a part of the story. In the 2013 elections, both the number of registered voters and turn-out increased substantially. Not only were there more than five million new voters, the voter turnout also increased from 44 percent in 2008 to 55 percent in 2013. It appears that the PTI’s real success lies in mobilising the middle class, which had remained uninterested in politics till then, and winning over the young voters.

Many other factors can be ascribed to the PPP’s dwindling fortunes. The PPP formed government in 2008, just when the world was entering into a global financial crisis. Inflation in Pakistan stood at 20 percent (25 percent according to some estimates), mainly because Musharraf had chosen to print currency notes worth Rs1.3 trillion in order to subsidise oil and electricity after oil prices surged from $50 per barrel in 2005 to more than $100 per barrel in 2008. This was a time bomb he had thrown into Pakistan’s economy before he left. His main reason, probably, was to ensure electoral victory for his Q-League at a time when he himself had become extremely unpopular.

By 2013, the PPP government was able to bring the inflation down to seven percent though oil prices had remained high. In economic terms, it was an incredible achievement. However, this is not how it was reported, perceived or experienced by low income population. For the media, it was just a case of increasing ‘mehngai’ (inflation) for which the PPP government was solely responsible. For the poor, living through this period was one of the most painful experiences of their lives. While the poor found it hard to feed themselves, the middle class also faced a crunch due to slump in businesses, increase in house rents, high interest rates etc.

It was a time when people were sizzling with anger, the media was weaving conspiracy theories and stoking fires, and the judiciary had chosen to make the government dysfunctional by keeping it in the dock perpetually. Finally, Imran Khan’s vitriolic tongue became his most prized asset. A national leader was, for the first time, expressing people’s wrath in truck driver language. The middle class urban youth, raised on American popular culture, loved it. At least linguistically, politics had reached the doorstep of the proverbial common man.

Asif Zardari’s bizarre policy of reconciliation was the Samurai sword with which the PPP committed political hara kiri. In terms of public sentiment, Pakistan’s politics can be divided into three periods. When ZA Bhutto founded the PPP in the 1960s, the nation got divided between pro-Bhutto and anti-Bhutto camps. This binary changed only when Nawaz Sharif emerged as a national leader in the 1990s and the vote got divided between pro-Bhutto and pro-Nawaz camps. With BB’s death, the battle lines were redrawn between pro-Nawaz and anti-Nawaz camps. Zardari’s reconciliation policy, in terms of public perception, meant that the PPP was no longer leading the anti-Nawaz tribe but was somehow part of it. Imran Khan played at this point shrewdly through his muk-mukao rhetoric, establishing the PTI as the real anti-Nawaz force.

The PTI’s main pitch is not economic and its focus, much like the other two parties, is not on the majority working class that does not figure in Pakistan’s politics any longer. The party’s appeal is based on middle-class identity politics. In many ways, there are astounding similarities to the rise of the BJP in India. It is a socially liberal and politically conservative party that uses religious symbolism without any religiosity and employs anti-Western rhetoric to win over a Westernised middle class that is strongly anchored in the Western economy and in Western institutions. Globalisation? Yes, that’s the word that should crop up in your mind. In terms of class interests, the PTI represents an insurgency of the educated elite that appears opposed to the power elite one notch above but aims at entrenching its own interests at the cost of the poor.

The PPP, which used to represent the poor or at least claimed to do so, is going through a crisis of representation. It does not know who it represents and what it stands for. We know that it represents certain business interests like the sugar industry, land development and a section of the Sindhi rural elite. We also know that it represents Sindhi ethnicity to some extent. Beyond these few points neither the party nor we know its socio-political agenda.

Those opposed to the PTI often cite support by the establishment and the Taliban veto as two major reasons for its success. Though exaggerated, these accusations are not without any substance. It is now well known that a nudge to ‘the electables’ at the right time created a stampede that filled up the PTI stables, turning it into a viable candidate for power. The Taliban also made it impossible for the ANP and PPP to carry out their election campaign in KP, while the PTI was allowed to hold rallies in the most unsafe of districts. This created an impression in the bleeding province of KP that the PTI could guarantee peace through reconciliation with the Taliban.

However, it is simplistic to cite these reasons as the only, or the major, factors for the PTI’s rise. There are complex social and political factors at play that guarantee that the PTI is here to stay at least as long as Imran Khan leads the party. But Bilawal is young and he can outlive his rivals. For centuries that has been one of the greatest strategies to beat enemies in the game of thrones.

The writer is a social anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan