“Architects of grandeur are often the master builders of disillusionment.”
Bryant H. McGill

The Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) was founded by charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on the following principals:

Islam is our Faith
Democracy is our politics
Socialism is our Economy
All Power to the People

On coming to power, the first PPP government, headed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, went for nationalization in three phases. In January 1972 and January 1974, banks, petroleum companies and shipping companies, oil refineries besides industries in iron, steel, engineering, chemicals, petrochemicals, cement and public utilities were nationalized.

On July 1, 1976 in yet another drive to nationalize the industry, the government nationalized 2815 cotton, ginning and rice husking units.

Similarly, in 1972 and 1977, land reforms were introduced. 2, 826, 4000 acres were appropriated. True, the land reforms proved half-hearted and nationalization degenerated into bureaucratisation. However, the first PPP government remains the only administration that introduced reforms benefiting working classes. This, however, does not in any sense make Ali Bhutto’s government a socialist one.

On the contrary, the ’socialist measures’ by a Bonapartist Bhutto government were aimed at pacifying the charged up working classes while keeping feudalism and capitalism intact.

He himself candidly dispelled any illusion, on winning 1970 general elections, about his being a socialist. When asked if he received any monetary help from China to contest elections, he stated: ’’The most angry people in Pakistan today are the communists for they know I have stopped the tide of communism by introducing Islamic socialism in this country..... ..In fact I have done more to combat communism in Asia than the Americans in spite of all the resources and the money they have piled into this part of the world. Before these elections the choice in Pakistan was a straight one between communism and capitalism’. How true.

The choice even after the elections was ’between communism and capitalism’. Bhutto was mistaken in lulling himself to the belief that he would strike a balance between his class of feudal lords and his electorate of serfs. He realized this mistake too. But only when he had landed himself in a death cell. In 1979, a military dictator sent Bhutto to gallows with tacit support lent by Washington. His murder was a multi-faceted tragedy as, among other things, it reduced the PPP to a family heirloom.

Ali Bhutto’s successor-daughter, Benazir Bhutto was never a radical or may be she thought it wise to seek shelter underneath the imperial umbrella. That her father had already purged the PPP of left radicals, made it even easy for Benazir Bhutto to eulogise Swedish model as the panacea for all the ills facing Pakistan.

Hence, when she returned from exile in 1986, the one-million crowd that welcomed her in Lahore was chanting in vain: Benazir aai hej, Inqlab lai hej (Benazir has returned and has brought revolution).

What Benazir had returned with was an agenda for privatization, downsizing, right-sizing. She ruthlessly perused this programme when she came to power in 1988 even if ’Socialism is our Economy ’ was still on the PPP statute books. However, when in 1993, PPP went to elections; it rid even its statute books of ’Socialism is our Economy’.

Her second stint in power has been superbly portrayed by Tariq Ali: ’’By the time she was re-elected in 1993, she had abandoned all idea of reform, but that she was in a hurry to do something became clear when she appointed her husband minister for investment, making him responsible for all investment offers from home and abroad. It is widely alleged that the couple accumulated $1.5 billion. The high command of the Pakistan People’s Party now became a machine for making money, but without any trickle-down mechanism’’.

Surrey Palace, SGS Cotectna, jam-eating horses, gem-studded necklace became catch phrases in Pakistan press and politics. Now an unofficial PPP manifesto had become:

USA is our faith.
Double-speak is our politics
Corruption is our economy
All power to the Khaki people

The incumbent President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, became a superb delineation of new-PPP statutes. When Benazir Bhutto formed her first government in 1988, that lasted until 1990, he earned himself the sobriquet of Mr. Ten Percent. In three years time, during Benazir’s second stint in power (1993-96), he pole-vaulted himself to Mr. Cent Percent. And consequently landed him in jail for almost ten years. It was to secure his release, many believe, that Benazir Bhutto kept on compromising with Musharraf regime.

He was, in due course, released as co-operation between Musharraf and Benazir evolved into a political compromise. Her return to Pakistan, in October 2007, was a part of a deal. However, on her return she wisely kept Asif Ali Zardari abroad. Alas! all her attempts proved futile. In her murder, a double tragedy struck Pakistan. First, Pakistan was deprived of her only national-level woman leader. Second, Zardari was back in Pakistan and also on the helm of party-government affairs. Hardly had anybody any illusions in him when he became an unchallenged master of PPP-government despite his trimmed down mustache and permanently stretched lips in an attempt to pose a changed image. No facial re-doing helped him rehabilitate his image damaged beyond repair. He secured the PPP for another generation by nominating Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as PPP chairperson. Himself he was pleased with the slot of country’s president.

No doubt, Zardari in power politics has outmaneuvered his rivals. He was able to secure three provincial governments and a pie in the Punjabi cake. Given the fact that PPP came to power after the Advocates Movement---that has effectively discredited Khakis---and US’s distrust of the GHQ, the PPP will most likely, for the first time, manage to complete its term in office.

This must be welcomed as a good omen for democracy. Also, the PPP government must be given credit for the constitutional amendment that has guaranteed concrete steps towards provincial autonomy. However, its massive failure in delivering economic relief, inability to stem the power shortage, arrest the inflation and joblessness, inability to contain military despite a golden chance after Osama’s murder, leadership’s indulgence in corruption (President Zardari has not been pointed out this time, however), and a general contempt for public welfare has undermined people’s faith in democracy.

That it has obediently implemented the economic agenda dictated by the IFIs shows the party orientation when it comes to working classes. The land reforms are not even talked about. Meantime, Bhutto’s legacy of radical foreign policy has been surrendered forever. All PPP wants is to stay in power through an appeasement of the GHQ and US embassy. This is hardly a recipe for strengthening democracy.

Farooq Sulehria