Political Forces in Pakistan

[Aarwaa]

Political Forces

Oct 16th 2006
From the Economist Intelligence Unit
Source: Country ViewsWire


The army remains Pakistan’s ultimate political arbiter. It has run the country for as many years as civilian governments, and was the driving force behind the premature removal of the last four elected administrations—Ms Bhutto’s in 1990 and 1996, and Mr Sharif’s in 1993 and 1999—all of which paid the price for seeking to increase their power at the military’s expense. In August 2001 and August 2005 General Musharraf’s regime held non-party local polls to elect officials (nazims) who would represent a new breed of civilian politicians untainted by the excesses of their predecessors and inclined to support the army’s political agenda. General Musharraf has, by and large, succeeded in achieving this goal. Under the new system, a nazim answers to a district co-ordination officer (DCO), who is appointed by the provincial governor, who is in turn appointed by General Musharraf. However, tensions have emerged over the distribution of power and funds between the nazim and the provincial members of parliament. The latter claim that their powers of patronage have been curtailed, thereby undermining their clout in their constituencies.



The PML

The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) was long regarded as the party closest to the powerful establishment of generals and senior bureaucrats. Mr Sharif, for example, was groomed as a politician by General Zia, and his first governing coalition was originally contrived by military intelligence as a counterweight to the PPP. After two disappointing and curtailed stints in government in a decade, the PML is now widely perceived as incompetent and corrupt. With Mr Sharif in exile, it has split into two factions, one of which, the pro-military PML (Quaid-i-Azam), or PML (Q), dominates the current government. In September 2003 four smaller anti-Sharif factions of the PML were persuaded to join the PML (Q). The PML (Nawaz), or PML (N), remains loyal to Mr Sharif and is part of the opposition.



The PPP

The only other national party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was likewise discredited after having failed to deliver during its two recent periods in office, and won just 18 of the 217 seats in the federal parliament in the February 1997 election. The party is, in effect, leaderless because of Ms Bhutto’s reluctance to return to Pakistan—the military government has stated that if she chooses to return to Pakistan it would either arrest her or deport her immediately. Despite this, her party performed well in the October 2002 election, winning 87 seats. However, the PPP now has only around 80 seats, as the government has lured several PPP parliamentarians to defect and join the government.



The MMA

In an unprecedented move, Pakistan’s six main religious parties formed a united front to contest the 2002 election. This grouping, the Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal (MMA) largely comprises the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islami, both of which have historically drawn support from the tribal and conservative areas of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The MMA won 59 seats in the National Assembly in the general election to become the second-largest opposition party in the country, and it also took control of the NWFP and Baluchistan, the latter in alliance with the PML (Q). The government’s move to undermine the PPP and the PML (N) had created a vacuum, which was filled by the MMA, and it successfully exploited widespread anti-US sentiment, particularly in NWFP. Until the 2002 election, the religious parties had never obtained more than 5% of the total vote in the country. In 2002 this rose to nearly 11%.



The MQM

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was originally formed to support Muslim refugees that emigrated to Pakistan from India during the partition. It is the third-largest political party, although its support base is largely confined to Urdu speakers in the main cities of Sindh, particularly Karachi and Hyderabad. The MQM’s militancy and reputation as an unreliable ally have frequently prevented it from capitalising on its potential as a power-broker, although it is currently a partner in the pro-Musharraf state government in Sindh.