The
defeat of ANP in the May 2003 Election is interpreted differently by different
people. According to the party‘s official stance, ANP was defeated due to the targeting of the party cadre in the
period leading up to the polls and the resultant inability of the
party to conduct an election campaign
and connect with its voters. This is
the most plausible argument as ANP was
attacked more than 31 times during the period and 61 party workers were killed
as a result of these attacks. Prior to
these attacks TTP‘s spokesman Ihsanullah
Ihsan had threatened the people not to
vote for ANP, PPP and MQM, the ruling coalition
that won the February 2008 Elections. These parties are generally
perceived to be secular in nature and anti-Taliban. The coalition government in
Islamabad in general and the ANP led government in the province had directly
confronted the TTP which also included a civilian-backed military operation in Swat
that resulted in the ouster of the Fazlullah led Tehrik-e-Taliban Swat from the
Malakand division.
Conversely,
the ideological workers in ANP also attribute its failure to internal reasons.
Khan Baba who has been running an pro-ANP E-Hujra for the last 10 years and who
has been very active on
social media recently said that
ANP‘s failure was the failure of its leadership. According to him Asfandiyar
Wali Khan should not have shifted to Islamabad after a suicide attack on him in
his Hujra in October 2008. This led to a leadership vacuum and the party was left to remain disconnected from the masses in the absence
of its leadership. It should be remembered that ANP enjoys its core membership
owing to the legacy of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan alias Bacha Khan and Khan Abdul
Wali Khan, the grandfather and father of Asfandiyar Wali Khan respectively. In
the absence of Asfandiyar Wali Khan, the
center of power within the party shifted to Mardan, the home
constituency of former Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Amir
haider Khan Hoti and nephew of Asfandiyar Wali Khan. In the capital city
Peshawar, power remained with the Bilour
Brothers, who were against the
award ofChief Minister‘s slot to Amir
haider Khan Hoti. One of the Bilour Brothers, Bashir Ahmad Bilour was later martyred in a suicide blast while campaigning for the general election.
After Asfandiyar Wali Khan shifted to Islamabad, in his home constituency
Charsadda (Hashtnaghar in Pashto), two powerful people ran the affairs of the
party: the inexperienced Aimal Wali Khan, the son of Asfandiyar Wali Khan and
Mr. Masoom Shah Badshah. While Aimal Wali Khan could not fill up the vacuum
created by the absence of his father due to security reasons and due to his
inexperience, Mr. Masoom Shah enjoyed very high ranking among the party workers
in Charsadda.
Masoom
Shah was a competent politician and he
consolidated his position in the party when he left Af tab Ahmad Khan Sherpao
and joined ANP. In 2008 Elections, he along with Afrasiab Khattak were targeted
by the TTP leaving several dead and injured in Shabqadar, Charsadda.
Mr.
Masoom Shah, commonly known as SMS, enjoyed a privileged position not only
within Charsadda but almost in the entire government circle owing to his
position as an advisor to the Chief Minister. Soon after his appointment,
public image of Masoom Shah took a nose
dive as both the party workers and the
general public accused him of corruption. Neither Masoom Shah nor ANP
leadership paid heed to anti-Masoom Shah hatred and by extinction a general
perception of corruption spread which added to the wide spread propaganda of Easy Load Baba— a derogatory term used for the alleged
corruption of Mr. Azam Hoti, the father of CM KPK Mr. Amir Haider Khan Hoti. The elder Hoti was once
released by the Government after his deal with the National Accountability
Bureau (NAB) for his alleged corruption when he was Federal Minister for Communication.
It
is difficult to tell when the party workers began to get alienated or
at what stage the party
leadership got disconnected from the masses. Till the crisis of Swat and the
subsequent military operation, ANP enjoyed not only the support of a large
section of intelligentsia but also other political parties due to ANP‘s bold stance against militancy. It might have
been a slow and steady process, First Asfandiyar Wali Khan‘s shifting to
Islamabad, second ANP‘s provincial president Afrasiab Khattak‘s over-engagement in Islamabad in the
preparation of 18th Amendment and thirdly due to the party‘s three
disjointed groups Hotis, Bilours and Masoom Shah enjoying powers in Mardan, Peshawar and Charsadda respectively.
At a time when the province was faced with security issues due to terrorism,
natural disasters like the flood in 2010 and other governance issues, ANP
government and the party largely remained disjointed, less focused on its
workers and away from the masses. The threats during May Elections 2013 only
served as the last nail in the coffin of ANP‘s traditional people-centered
politics.
Some
perceptions are also propagated in the media and political circles that ANP
lost the elections due to its poor performance during its five year rule in
KPK. This argument does not appear to be based on reality. It should be noted that ANP didn‘t lose
election due to its bad performance. By all means ANP‘s provincial government‘s
performance was relatively better as compared to its predecessor, the Muttahida Mjalis e Amal (MMA) government
or any other government in the Past. ANP‘s election slogan in 2008 was to bring
peace to the province. Judging against this sole yardstick, ANP performed very well. The government restored
ordered to Swat, pushed back militants takeover of Peshawar and other parts of
the province and sacrificed more than 800 party workers which included Bashir
Bilour, Mian Rashid Hussain, MPA Alamzeb, Fazal e Ghani Lala and many others.
The ANP changed the name of the province, passed the 18th Constitution
Amendment, decentralizing powers to the provinces, increased the number of
public-sector universities, increased the role of Civil Society, empowered
artists, artisans and craftsmen, created
spaces for women in politics and other fields, supported the students and the
needy and took positive steps in many other
areas. And finally to quote just one example ANP had the most vocal,
energetic and popular Information Minister
Mian Iftikhar Hussain who stood
like a rock and
displayed unprecedented leadership skills.
So
where did things go wrong for ANP? Should we remain complacent with the
argument that ANP failure was mainly because of its disconnection from the
masses? For most people this argument
would be sufficient. However, for a more informed reader, we need to dig deeper
and look for how social changes shape perceptions and why it is important in
politics to give more heed to perceptions than reality.
Perceptions
are largely the expectation of the people about their well-being. ANP‘s good
performance did not leave a permanent impression on the people. All the good
work that ANP did was not owned by the people or perceived as such. The party
workers could not link renaming of the province to the material well-being of
the people. The universities established were not properly managed or merit was
not ensured so people could not trust the good intentions. The sacrifices of ANP‘s workers were largely ignored and
the people rather
linked them with ANP‘s support
for the US policies in the region.
Democracy
is all about people‘s perceptions. The new media such as electronic media and
social media have been instrumental not only to shape these perceptions but
also to appeal to the popular perceptions. Criticism on government policies is
one of the pastimes of modern media. It is generally difficult for the
democratic governments to live up to the media expectation and in transitional
democracies like ours the government is always in the negative ranking. The
popular watchwords on media mostly favour the opposition. It is no surprise
that PPP or ANP lost the popularity because of these factors. However,
ANP‘s dismal performance has many other contributing
factors too.
It
is understandable that voters in elections looked for alternatives.
Traditionally ANP has no single party alternative but parties like Jamet Ulema
e Islam(JUI), Qaumi Watan Party(QWP), Paksitan People‘s Party(PPP), Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) and
Jumat-e-Islami(JI) won against ANP on
constituency level or through political alliances. In the recent elections the
voters were relatively more aware and they were focused more on issues. This
was the most favourable time for ANP. However, the Paksitan Tehreek e Insaf
(PTI) factor swept ANP from the province. The ANP mostly undermined the PTI.
Under
the impression of the media, youth from
PTI launched a very affective campaign by raising the expectation level of the
voters and offered a more participatory and pro-people politics. ANP on the
other hand remained complacent with its constituency and candidate-based
politics. Asfandiyar Wali Khan used to say that elections are 70 percent
candidate and 30 percent party. Social and political realities change and
elections 2013 have proved this change.
The virtual elimination of secular and nationalist parties from the
political power corridors does not auger well for the people of KPK at large
and particularly for the Pashtuns. It‘s time that the leadership of ANP carry out in-depth analysis of the factors
leading to its complete ouster from the political landscape ( at least for now)
and put in place corrective measures in time for the next elections right from
now on. One aspect that would require special attention is to attract the youth
through concerted and imaginative efforts at the grass roots level.
by Muammad Arif
(Published in SAHAR JULY 2013)
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