Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [143]
In the past, this has not marked a clear Sunni – Shia split between the main parties. Kinship, personal and factional rivalries divide all Pakistan’s religious traditions. The PML(N) contains many Shia and Barelvis, and the Sharifs have been careful to show great respect and support to the leading shrines. However, the savage attacks by the Pakistani Taleban and their Punjabi sectarian allies on shrines in 2010, and the apparent closeness to the sectarians of some of the Sharifs’ leading allies, mean that Shia and Barelvis may begin to desert the PML(N), possibly dealing it a heavy blow in certain areas.
The PPP leadership for its part knows very well that it would be crazy to make an openly Shia appeal in an overwhelmingly Sunni country, in which outright, declared Shia (as opposed to devotees of shrines which bridge the Shia – Sunni gap) may be as few as 10 per cent. The Bhuttos, Zardaris and other families therefore follow Sunni rituals in public – in accordance with the old Shia tradition of taqiyya, which permits Shia to disguise their real beliefs if threatened with persecution. Nonetheless, the PPP does seem to have a degree of permanent residual support in some minority religious groups – a point to which I will return in the next chapter, on Punjab.
THE PAKISTAN MUSLIM LEAGUE (NAWAZ) (PML(N))
On the whole, however, and for many years now, Pakistani vote swings have been powered less by enthusiasm for the party in opposition than exasperation with the party in power. In other words, the future of the PPP will depend heavily on how its main rivals, the Muslim League of the Sharifs, perform when they are next in government. If the PML(N)’s past record is anything to go by, the PPP will have plenty of opportunities to exploit public discontent. Indeed, anger at the PPP-led national government in Punjab over failures of the flood relief effort in 2010 was to some extent balanced by anger at the PML(N)’s provincial government for the same reason.
When trying to define the identity of the Muslim League, I quoted Benazir Bhutto on the slogan Jeeay Bhutto to a Pakistani friend, and asked him what the PML(N)’s equivalent would be. ‘Parathas,’ he replied like a shot, referring to the fried flat-bread much loved in Punjab. ‘Just listen and you’ll hear how right it sounds for them: “Long live parathas.” It’s a lovely word. They’re warm and wonderful. They lift the heart ...’
This is of course a shockingly frivolous comment, and I sincerely hope that no Pakistani reader is so utterly lost to political seriousness as to laugh at it. This joke was, however, also intended to make a serious point concerning one of the greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses of the PML(N), namely their strongly Punjabi character.
It is the party’s base in Punjab and in Punjabi sentiment that allowed it to liberate itself from its original military masters and to survive eight years in the political wilderness after Musharraf’s coup in 1999. On the other hand, this means that its vote in other provinces has been very limited, and it has never been able to rule in Sindh except through local alliances of opportunist ‘feudals’. In the NWFP, however, Sharif’s criticism of the US and distancing from the struggle with the Taleban may pay permanent electoral dividends.
Punjabi culture largely explains the particular charismatic appeal of Nawaz Sharif to many ordinary Punjabis, so absolutely incomprehensible to most Western observers and indeed to Pakistani liberal intellectuals. His rough but jovial personal style goes with this, as does the fact that, while frequently wooden and tongue-tied in English, he apparently speaks very effectively in Punjabi.
Leaders of the party like to stress that it had its beginnings in the mass opposition movement to Z. A. Bhutto in 1976, and especially in the outrage