Business Recorder Editorial January 1, 2021

PDM’s prospects

 

The Pakistan Democratic Movement was always inherently a diverse and disparate conglomerate of 11 parties united only on the single agenda of removing the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf government and persuading its establishment backers to accept the demand for fresh free and fair elections. However, as the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s campaign has played out in the form of rallies, it has become clear that this one-point agenda may not be enough. Even before a discussion on what the Pakistan Democratic Movement is offering the people if and when its constituent parties come to power, which despite the people’s concerns regarding inflation, unemployment, etc, suffers from the deficit of a programme with broad appeal, it is obvious that the main parties in the Pakistan Democratic Movement have differing perceptions, considerations, and even tactics and strategy. This reality became clear as daylight after the Pakistan People’s Party Central Executive Committee meeting on December 29, 2020. A host of speculative stories began to circulate about the outcome of this Central Executive Committee meeting immediately after it ended regarding the issue of en masse resignations from the Assemblies, participation in some looming by-elections, and engaging collectively as the Pakistan Democratic Movement in the Senate elections to prevent the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf government from gaining a majority in the upper house that would enable it to reverse, for example, the 18^thAmendment and the National Finance Commission Award that favours the provinces. However, when Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari addressed a press conference after the Central Executive Committee conclave, some issues were clarified but not without leaving some anomalies unresolved. For example, the rumour that the Pakistan People’s Party had insisted, on co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari’s advice, that Nawaz Sharif’s return was a necessary condition for tendering resignations, was refuted. While Bilawal echoed his father’s sentiments that resignations were the ultimate weapon and not to be used lightly before exhausting all other options, observers were wont to ascribe this qualified endorsement of the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s declared position as reflecting the Pakistan People’s Party’s stakes in the present dispensation in the shape of the Sindh government, which it obviously was not inclined to throw away for uncertain gains. Nor can the argument that the government should not be given a free run in the Senate elections be dismissed lightly. Bilawal reiterated the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s stance that no dialogue was possible until Imran Khan goes. At the end, he did say that the Pakistan People’s Party Central Executive Committee’s decisions would be discussed in the Pakistan Democratic Movement to forge a consensus on the way forward.

The political landscape is not without concerns for the Pakistan Democratic Movement. Its Lahore rally fell short of expectations, a dampener for the proposed “long march” on Islamabad in January 2021. The National Accountability Bureau is even more active now against the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s leadership. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is now in its crosshairs while Khwaja Asif has been arrested on the by now familiar refrain of ‘assets beyond means’. The federal cabinet has ‘allowed’ the National Assembly Speaker to accept the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s resignations, signalling in no uncertain terms that the Speaker of the National Assembly, who is supposedly the ‘custodian of the house’, is subservient to the will of the executive. The split in the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl smacks of the also familiar skullduggery of the security services. But above all this, the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s anti-security establishment rhetoric is suspect in the light of past experience and the track record of its constituent parties in cooperating with this same establishment when it suited them. If to this is added the point enunciated above of the lack of a programme attractive to the suffering general public, the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s prospects currently appear troubled, if not dim.