Mian Nawaz Sharif’s decision to anoint Maryam Nawaz Sharif as a senior vice president of the PML-N, as well as the party’s chief organizer, is very much in keeping with the dynastic principle that is the most enduring feature of Pakistan’s peculiar brand of democracy.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s hair may well have turned grey in the loyal service of the PML-N, even to the extent of holding fort for the party as prime minister in extremely adverse times, and the likes of Khwaja Asif, Khwaja Saad Rafique, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan and Ahsan Iqbal may have spent the better part of their lives as faithful stalwarts of the party; however, all of this simply counts for naught when the party’s critical offices are up for grabs, leave alone succession to the office of party president has to be chalked out.
The hard fact of the matter, as often parroted by acolytes of the House of Sharif, is that “the party and the vote-bank is that of Nawaz Sharif”, and, therefore, the leader’s word is law as far as the party’s decision- making is concerned. In that context, Maryam Nawaz’s appointment to high office by her father should surprise no soul. Even though, at the very least, it jars with the universally accepted principle that decisions in government or politics should not be taken in a situation of clear conflict of interest – and it would be hard to find a less arm’s length transaction than a party supremo arbitrarily elevating his daughter as the supremo-in-waiting.
Maryam Nawaz may well have noteworthy qualities of head and heart, not least being her crowd-pulling ability, her gutsiness and her fortitude in the face of the adversity heaped on her in the recent past, including a lengthy spell in NAB custody on trumped-up charges, her conviction on spurious grounds by the NAB court, which was later overturned by the Islamabad High Court, and the prolonged confiscation of her passport. However, these qualities would probably not have been enough to propel her to high office within the party had her surname been different.
This is not to suggest that the PML-N operates differently from the vast majority of other political parties in Pakistan. On the contrary, the Sharifs are only the leading exemplars of dynastic politics in the country. But not far behind them is the PPP, manned currently by the father- son duo of Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto and with a long history of entrenched dynastic rule behind them, or the JUI-F, where Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who himself succeeded his father, Maulana Mufti Mehmood, as party head over four decades ago, will eventually pass on the party mantle to his son, Maulana Asad Mahmood, currently winning his spurs as a member of the federal cabinet. And it goes on and on, with several other political parties serving as a vehicle for promoting the interests of one particular family, whether the Khans of Wali Bagh, the Chaudhries of Gujrat, the Mengals of Wadh, the Sherpaos of Charsadda or the Pagaro Pirs of Khairpur.
The bitter reality is that while in India the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is now a shadow of its former self, in Sri Lanka the Rajapaksa clan has been disgraced and driven out of power and in Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s son has no ostensible plans to follow in his mother’s footsteps, Pakistan is alone among the South Asian countries, as well as one of the few remaining democracies of the world, where the baneful shadow of dynasty looms large over the leadership of political parties, particularly in the case of two out of the three parties that are serious contenders for power at the federal level.
This begs the obvious question: why is Pakistani democracy in such an unattractively unique class of its own? The answer is not an easy one, rather there are many different pieces which come together to form a complex jigsaw puzzle, ranging from entrenched tradition and culture, an all pervasive sense of entitlement, the enduring pull of caste and tribe, the lack of professionalism of the political class and, finally, the financial cost of fighting elections.
In this article, I have first briefly explained the meaning of dynastic politics. Next, I have sought to examine in some detail the key reasons, as mentioned above, why our politics overwhelmingly remains the bailiwick of an assortment of dynasties. And at the end, I have made an assessment of the likely impact that dynasts will continue to have on Pakistani politics in the years to come.
What is Dynastic Politics?
When members of one family occupy positions of power in government and/or parliament, and previous generations of the same family have done likewise, that phenomenon is described as dynastic politics.
The example of the Legharis of Dera Ghazi Khan can best illustrate this concept. Nawab Sir Jamal Khan Leghari was the Tumandar of the Baluch Leghari tribe and one of the premier landowners of Punjab. He was elected a member of the Punjab legislature in 1920, 1923, 1926, 1930, 1937 and 1946 and he served as a provincial minister in the pre-partition cabinet of Malik Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana. His eldest son and successor as Tumandar, Sardar Mohammed Khan Leghari, was elected to the Punjab Assembly on several occasions, while his other sons, Sardar Atta Mohammed Leghari and Sardar Mehmood Leghari also served in the national and provincial legislatures.
Amongst the grandsons of Sir Jamal Khan, the most prominence was achieved by Sardar Farooq Leghari, who rose to become Pakistan’s head of state, after having served as a federal minister many times over. Other grandsons, such as Sardar Maqsood Leghari, Sardar Jaffar Leghari and Sardar Omer Leghari, were also elected to the national and provincial legislatures, with the first-named also serving as a federal and provincial minister.
Presently, several of the great-grandchildren of Sir Jamal Khan are active in electoral politics, including Sardars Jamal Leghari, Awais Leghari, Mohammed Khan Leghari, Yousaf Leghari, as well as Dr Asma Mamdot and Sumaira Malik.
Hence it would not be inapt to state that Sir Jamal Khan Leghari and his descendants represent the classic case of dynastic politics.
But dynastic politics in Pakistan is not always the preserve of the conservative landed class; rather, this strain is also quite visible among sections of left-leaning nationalist politicians and the urban elite.
From KPK, the prime example is presented by the non-feudal Bilours of Peshawar. Long-standing members of the ANP, a left-of- centre Pakhtun nationalist party, brothers Bashir and Ghulam Ahmed Bilour repeatedly represented the family in the KPK Assembly and the National Assembly, while a third brother, Ilyas, served in the Senate. In the next generation, the widow of Bashir Bilour’s son was elected an MPA on a general seat in the 2018 elections.
In Baluchistan, the Achakzai dynasty, standard-bearers of Pashtun nationalism, is no less impressive. Khan Abdus Samad Achakzai, aka the Baluch Gandhi, was elected an MPA from Quetta in the 1970 elections. One of his sons, Mahmud Khan Achakzai, has been an MNA from Quetta on several occasions, while another son, Mohammed Khan Achakzai, served as Governor Baluchistan. A third son, Hamid Achakzai, has also been elected an MNA and an MPA, while a grandson, Abdul Majeed Achakzai, has twice been elected to the Baluchistan Assembly.
In the Punjab, the shadow of dynastic politics is also visible among the non-landed class of politicians. Two of the most egregious cases of dynastic politics among the Punjabi urban elite relate to Khwaja Asif and the late Pervaiz Malik. Following the 2018 elections, Khwaja Asif was elected MNA from Sialkot, while his wife, Mussarrat Asif, and his niece, Shiza Fatima Khwaja, were elected to the National Assembly on reserved seats. Similarly, Pervaiz Malik and his son Ali Pervaiz were elected from Lahore to the National Assembly, while Mrs. Pervaiz Malik entered the National Assembly on a reserved seat. Rarely, if at all ever, would these records have been matched, leave alone beaten, by any other family in Pakistani politics.
Therefore, the key truth that emerges from the above examples is that dynastic politics in Pakistan is a hard truth to be contended with across the board, irrespective of provincial boundaries, the urban-rural divide and class distinctions (i.e. landed or urban politicians).
Why do Dynasts Hold Sway Over Pakistani Politics?
There are several reasons for the ascendancy of dynastic politics in Pakistan’s political arena. These can be divided into three main categories: societal reasons; the general outlook of Pakistani politicians; and, last but not least, the mise-en-scene in which Pakistani politics operates. Each of these reasons is briefly discussed below.
Societal Reasons
1. Tradition and Culture
Although the social fabric of Pakistan is slowly and steadily undergoing change, driven by urbanization, a greater participation of women in the economy and the impact of global social influences, the country essentially remains a traditional society, with strong ties of kinship based on the family unit. The culture of Pakistan is still largely conservative, particularly in the rural areas, and social mores reflect a generally traditionalist approach to life.
In this context, it is often par for the course for a son or daughter to follow in the footsteps of one or the other parent in the choice of their vocation. Politics is no exception to the rule, and just as the children of lawyers, doctors, engineers and architects often emulate their parents, the progeny of politicians are prone to follow in the footsteps of their fathers or mothers.
The Pakistani electorate, particularly in the rural areas, is equally traditional and conservative in its outlook. In making its political choices, it is primarily driven by the imperative of benefiting from government services, infrastructure projects and recruitment to government jobs. Therefore, it is but natural that the electorate will consider the progeny of a serving politician to be his/her logical successor because very often s/he represents the best bet for the electorate to achieve their personal and community-based goals due to his/her clout, linkages and alliances with local power-brokers and civil-military officials and, above all, experience of contesting and winning elections on account of the political standing and dominance of earlier generations of the family.
In this way, the principle of dynastic politics keeps getting cemented in a cyclical fashion, not only in rural constituencies, but also in many urban electorates, as mentioned in the previous section.
2. Tribal and Caste Loyalty
It is an undeniable fact that tribal and caste ties continue to influence the electoral choices of the vast majority of Pakistani voters, in the length and breadth of the country. By and large, a Bugti will vote for a Bugti candidate in Dera Bugti, just as a Mazari will vote for a Mazari in Rajanpur, a Jatoi will vote for a Jatoi in Naushero Feroze and a Gujjar will vote for a Gujjar in Mansehra. In such a setting, the paramount consideration for voters is to ensure that a member of their caste is successful in an electoral contest. Concerns about the inequity of dynastic politics rarely figure in their thinking; on the contrary, voters are more than likely to vote with gusto for a dynast candidate who hails from their own caste and who is likely to best protect and promote their narrow and sectional caste interests.
In urban electorates, party colours carry more weight than they do in rural areas, but nevertheless even here political parties are careful to try and accommodate caste considerations. For example, in an urban area such as Sialkot, there is a sizeable chunk of Kashmiri voters. Khwaja Asif, the standard-bearer of dynastic politics in Sialkot, has held his National Assembly seat since 1993, and it would be hard to deny that a key factor in his success is the presence of a strong Kashmiri vote-bank in his constituency. It is perhaps for the same reason that the PTI fielded another Kashmiri, Usman Dar, against Khwaja Asif, both in the 2013 and 2018 elections, although success did not crown Dar’s efforts.
Therefore, till such time as tribe and caste factors remain a force in Pakistani society, it would be unrealistic to expect that these matters will not provide a strong basis for the propagation of dynastic politics.
The Outlook of Politicians
3. A Paucity of Professionalism
The course of Pakistani politics has followed an artificial and unnatural trajectory, generally since independence and particularly so after the party-less polls of 1985. This has primarily been due to long bouts of military rule, coupled with the consistent intrusion of the establishment in politics. But no less damaging to the evolution of a normal political landscape has been the menace of over-bearing and interfering civilian heads-of-state, such as Malik Ghulam Mohammed and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, topped off by the dark shadow of heightened judicial activism, particularly since 2007. In such a milieu, the political class has generally been unable to find its bearings in a sustained manner, leave alone to train itself in the art of statecraft, to develop the requisite maturity and professionalism to tackle the increasingly complex problems faced by state and society or to establish positive traditions in the area of governance.
Entrenched dynastic politics is partly also a by-product of this under-evolved political environment. Imagine a political party leader having his back to the wall in the face of overt and covert challenges, both constitutional and extra-constitutional, from the establishment, from other politicians allied to the latter, from the judiciary and from a partisan bureaucracy. Confronted with such odds, the politician may be forgiven for taking the safest course available to him to protect and preserve his position, i.e. to appoint close blood relatives to key positions in the party.
To take an example, let’s consider the situation in the Punjab from 1990-1993. During this period, Mian Nawaz Sharif entrusted the Punjab chief-ministership to a trusted aide, Ghulam Hyder Wyne. Since Wyne was a political non-entity with no power-base of his own, his appointment allowed Nawaz Sharif to keep at bay ambitious members of the Punjab Muslim League who themselves aspired to become the Punjab chief minister and any one of whom would have rebelled had one of the others been elevated to that high office. Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Mian Manzoor Wattoo were the obvious two aspirants for the chief-ministership, but they had to sit back and bide their time during Wyne’s tenure.
The moment Nawaz Sharif had his falling out with president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Mian Manzoor Wattoo threw in his lot with the latter and led a revolt in the Punjab Assembly which resulted in the ouster of Wyne. Manzoor Wattoo not only became chief minister but he was also the proverbial thorn in the flesh of Nawaz Sharif when the latter was restored to the prime minister’s chair by the Supreme Court. At the end, the continuing clash and tension between the federal and Punjab governments became a major cause for the destabilization of Nawaz Sharif’s restored administration, eventually leading to his departure from office and the resignation of president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
The lesson that Nawaz Sharif learnt from the above episode was that entrusting the Punjab government to anyone other than immediate family was fraught with a twofold risk: if the person is a cipher, like Ghulam Hyder Wyne, then he will neither be able to run an effective administration nor to hold the government together in times of adversity; while if the person is an ambitious lieutenant like Manzoor Wattoo, he will likely carve out an independent power-base of his own and challenge the authority of the prime minister and at the same time his equally ambitious rivals will resent his appointment and react in disruptive ways which will be equally troubling for the prime minister.
To obviate situations like the one above, politicians like Mian Nawaz Sharif opt for keeping key positions within the family. This does not mean that the principle of dynastic politics can be condoned, but it does provide an explanation for the continued existence of this tradition until the overall political system attains a higher level of maturity and professionalism.
4. Sense of Entitlement
With the passage of time, as the dynastic tradition has become more and more entrenched it has fostered a deep sense of entitlement among the beneficiaries of this tradition. What this means is that when one dynast retires from politics, or rather when the Almighty forcibly withdraws the dynast from terra firma – since Pakistani politicians rarely ever retire – his/her blood relative considers it natural and logical that s/ he should succeed. The greater the ancestor’s success and standing in politics, the higher the probability that a close blood relative will be his/ her successor.
The sense of entitlement is not only second nature to the politician’s chosen successor or nominee but it is also taken for granted by all the beneficiaries who have prospered at the hands of the senior politician. These include the team of election managers, polling agents and other campaign staff, local councilors, members of traders associations, unions and other local groupings, petty officials and an assortment of power- brokers of the area. It is in the interests of these persons that the gravy train to which they have become accustomed continues to remain in place, and for this purpose the dynast represents their best bet. Hence, it is but natural for them to bring their own influence to bear on the dynast in order to make him/her take up their parent’s mantle.
A small example helps illustrate this point. Shortly after the 1988 elections, a PPP MNA from NA 120 (Multan-Khanewal), Chaudhry Abdur Rehman Wahla, passed away. The supporters of the deceased MNA prevailed upon his son, Fazal Dad Wahla, to contest the by- election on his father’s seat. The fact that young Fazal Dad had nothing to do with politics, and that he was studying in Texas to become an orthodontist, was of little consequence to the Wahla camp. For them, winning the seat and preserving their factional power was of paramount importance, and in their calculations the dynast had the best chance of winning the seat. Which is what actually happened when the by-election was held in February 1989. However, Dr Fazal Dad chose not to contest the next elections in 1990 and instead he returned to the USA to complete his studies. Obviously his heart lay in his chosen profession rather than in politics.
This episode shows that the perpetuation of dynastic politics is not always a result of the dynast’s own wishes and that societal/factional pressures can also provide a strong fillip for the maintenance of this tradition.
The Overall Milieu of Pakistani Politics
5. Interference of the Establishment
Dynastic politicians generally owe primary loyalty to their own personal interests, rather to any political ideology. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but as a standard principle it is clear that dynastic politicians are more prone than non-dynast politicians to chart their voyage in accordance with the direction of the wind. For this reason, dynastic politicians have, by and large, tied their colours to the mast of the establishment of the day since the most favourable gusts of wind tend to emanate from this quarter. In return, the establishment has reciprocated by supporting the dynasts.
6. The Financial Cost of Fighting Elections
Contesting elections imposes a heavy financial burden on candidates. This ranges from printing pamphlets and posters, arranging election rallies, providing food and transport for voters and funding the operation of election offices and campaign teams. Obviously, in order to satisfy such myriad heads of expenditure, a candidate needs to be well- endowed with monetary resources.
Most dynastic politicians, whether of urban or rural origin, are generally in a comfortable state when it comes to the robustness of their bank balance. This does not mean that all non-dynastic politicians are financially less blessed than their dynastic cousins, but it is rare to see dynastic politicians being unable to finance their campaign from their own resources and instead having to scrounge around for funds from external sources to finance their election campaign.
The general abundance of their financial resources often provides dynastic politicians with an inherent advantage over non-dynastic politicians when it comes to battling it out at the hustings. In turn, this helps in the continuing relevance of dynastic politics in Pakistan’s political arena.
What is the Prognosis for the Future?
In my view, the role of dynasty in Pakistani politics is not going to end in the foreseeable future. This is simply because the factors that could cause a dent in the durability of this concept are absent, or they are at too nascent a stage to significantly pose a threat to its longevity. The hold of dynasts could be weakened in an organic fashion if the middle class was thriving and gaining in economic clout, if literacy in the true meaning of the word became the order of the day across Pakistan, if the wealthy classes were brought into the tax net, if the stringent enforcement of the rule of law resulted in effective accountability of the entrenched political order, if the ceiling on election expenses was ruthlessly implemented thus allowing candidates across the socio-economic board to compete with each other on an equal footing and if interference in politics ended, in letter in spirit. However, none of this appears to be on the anvil.
The Indian political experience shows how the most formidable of political dynasties can be made a shadow of its former self, not through a bloody revolution but through sustained economic growth which empowers and expands the middle class.
From independence in 1947 until the late 1980s, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty totally dominated Indian politics. During this period, India had a sort of a planned economy with socialist moorings and the size of its middle class remained negligible as a percentage of the country’s total population. However, since Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian economy in the early 1990s, the Indian middle class has burgeoned and ridden the wave of economic liberalization. With a consistent 6% growth rate on average during this century, the Indian economy is now the fifth largest in the world.
While the Indian economy and middle class were growing and illiteracy was decreasing, the power of the country’s most famous dynasty was waning. The last time a member of India’s premier political family occupied the prime minister’s chair was in 1989! Twice, in the 2014 and 2019 elections, the Modi juggernaut demolished the Indian National Congress and left the Nehru-Gandhi family shell-shocked. Today, Sonia Gandhi is on the verge of retiring from politics altogether, Rahul Gandhi is desperately trying to re-invent the party through a mass-contact Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign while Priyanka Gandhi has failed to live up to expectations that she has the political astuteness of her grandmother, Indira Gandhi. Above all, the Congress president-ship is in the hands of a non-family member for the first time since 2001. The simple truth is that as India has progressed on the path to development, its people have become less accepting of the notion of entitlement that is the underlying essence of dynastic politics. Resultantly, the Nehru- Gandhi family’s star has been robbed of its lustre.
On the contrary, Pakistan’s journey to economic development has been rocky, inconsistent and generally skewed in favour of making the rich richer, with short shrift given to expanding the size and power of the middle class. Therefore, Pakistani society is bereft of the natural and evolutionary factors which weaken dynastic politics in an incremental fashion. Dynasties in Pakistan continue to remain relevant and they are likely to continue to cast a long shadow over the country’s politics in the years to come, to the general detriment of state and society.
