Pakistan’s
successful general elections which has brought the business tycoon and
1990s ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharief, back to power, has also shown up the
deep ethnic divide that besets that nation.
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| Nawaz Sharief's PMLN wins |
Sharief’s Pakistan
Muslim League(N) will rule over Pakistan on the basis of the overwhelming votes
it managed to garner in Punjab. Out of the 126 seats it won in the Pakistan national assembly, 118 came from Punjab. In all other provinces it managed to get but
marginal vote shares - in Sindh it managed a mere 1 seat out of 59 National Assembly constituencies, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 4 out of 39, none in Balochistan and 2 out of 11 in Federally Adminitered Tribal Areas (see table at end of blog ). In the eyes of most Pakistanis, Sharief’s party, it
seems, will continue to remain identified as a `Punjabi’ party.
In line with national results, the PMLN gained an overwhelming 212 seats in the Punjab assembly, while most other Pakistani parties found themselves without much luck in the province which accounts for 60 per cent of Pakistan's electorate.
In Sindh, the
Bhutto family led Pakistan People’s Party and Karachi based Muttahida Quami
Movement (which represents poor Bihari and eastern UP Muslim refugees) have
swept in, with PMLN nowhere in sight. But then the PMLN was always derided by
its opponents as a Punjabi party and that is its biggest problem. For long, Sindhis, Baloch and Mohajirs (poorer refugees from India) complained that Pakistan is ruled by a combination of Punjabis and Pathans who rule the roost in politics, bureaucracy and the army.
Conversely, the
PPP which used to boast of a sizable following in Punjab several decades back,
was virtually wiped out there in the national elections. PPP which had started out as a pan-Western
Pakistan party, is increasingly turning into a Sindhi party, with the mesmeric
hold that the Bhutto dynasty had over voters elsewhere dying out.
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| Benazir |
While Zulfikar Bhutto and
his daughter were seen as symbols of a new movement which could lead Pakistan
to some kind of a Islamic socialist democracy ideal, their inheritor – Benazir’s
widow Asif Ali Zardari seems to be viewed by voters as just another Sindhi
leader. The son, Bilawal Bhutto who was missing during the polls after a spat
with Zardari, is yet to prove himself.
Sindh has had separatist
movements in the past but these always took a backseat when the Bhuttos ruled over
Pakistan. However, with the Bhutto and allied Sindhi feudal clans denied power, the
province may well prove to be a headache for Islamabad.
PPP swept rural Sindh
to win the most National Assembly seats from that province as also cross the half-way mark in the
coastal province’s own assembly. However, the port megapolis of Karachi went to the
MQM, with the party winning 18 of the 20 National Assembly seats in the city,
the largest and richest in Pakistan.
In
Pakhtunkhwa and Fata wildlands, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-I-Insaf has done
well but done equally badly in all other provinces. Whether Imran won because his
Pathan lineage (Mianwali Pathan or Pathans from Punjab’s Mianwali district) struck
a chord with Highlander Pathans or because he advocated a zero tolerance policy
towards unpopular drone strikes, the Tsunami of youth power he predicted, never
went beyond the Pathan provinces.
In Balochistan
where, voter turnout in Baloch areas was as low as 2-3 per cent and about 40
per cent in Pashtun areas, again the story is one of ethnicity – the biggest
chunk of seats having been cornered by a local Pashtun party.
The few Baloch parties
which fought elections had little to show for themselves as they were targeted by
both Baloch separatists who don’t want polls in the restive province and by the
`establishment’ (a term used by Pakistanis for the Army-ISI combine) which did
not want them to do too well.
The day the
results were announced was marked by Baloch rebels with a suicide attack on a
convoy carrying the police chief of that province, spelling troubled days ahead
for the gas and mineral rich province which has seen separatist movements
rearing their head since 1948, with the most serious being in the 1970s.
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| Baloch Rebels Wall Writing Against Elections |
The 1970 factor
PML’s rise to
power is in ways similar to the 1970 elections in Pakistan when Mujibber
Rahman’s Awami League emerged as the undisputed single largest majority party
in Pakistan based on its performance in Bengali-speaking East Pakistan. In
1970, Awami League managed to win 160 seats in east Pakistan and nil seats in
West Pakistan.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
and his PPP which in 1970 garnered 62 seats in Punjab, 18 in Sindh and none in
Balochistan and East Pakistan, refused to accept Mujib and his `Bengali’ party
as rulers of Pakistan, a refusal which contributed to the break-up of Pakistan.
Nothing as
drastic or dramatic will happen in 2013. Sharief’s ascent to power will not be
challenged, but it may well reinforce existing ethnic divides, unless he is
willing to share power with other ethnic parties.
Already the fissures are creating
fresh divides. MQM chief Altaf Hussein, reacting to Imran Khan’s calls for
re-poll in Karachi which the `Establishment’ seems to be favouring, has
threatened to “detach Karachi from Pakistan” if the `Establishment’ does not
like the results which favour his party. The Dawn newspaper quoted Hussein threatening to break the arms
of those who are “hatching conspiracies against MQM”. Hussein, was also quoted
as stating : “I am about to set free my enraged followers if opposition against
our party is not stopped.” While this is certainly much more sound and fury than
substance, MQM’s stand on `Pakistaniyat’ (the idea of Pakistan) is not exactly
to the liking of the `Establishment’ which is believed to have been backing Imran
Khan and his PTI as the best way to keep Pakistan intact for their continued rule through proxy.
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| MQM's Altaf Hussein - `Ruler' of Karachi ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pakistan National Assembly Results (province-wise)
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