Do you trust any Pakistani political party?

[MenInG]

I am sure we have some with blind faith but have a look at each of the party's track record and ask yourself if you can really trust them to deliver what they promise

 

[Syed1]

I do not trust some of the elements in PTI but I have complete faith in Imran Khan and his ability to form an excellent team that can take Pakistan forward.

 

[MenInG]

For all the talk of mistrust, what I find is that people are ready to live and die for these parties!

 

[miandadrules]

It's foolish to put any trust in career criminals.

It is in their interests to keep the population ignorant and subjugated.

I don't think IK will usher in a new era, simply because more and more establishment figures are infiltrating his party.

However, my hope is that he can inspire the younger generation to accept the notion that corruption is inevitable and institutionalised.

Change occurs from the bottom up, not top down.

So, stop looking for a messiah and take responsibility yourself.

 

[ManFan]

It's foolish to put any trust in career criminals.

It is in their interests to keep the population ignorant and subjugated.

I don't think IK will usher in a new era, simply because more and more establishment figures are infiltrating his party.

However, my hope is that he can inspire the younger generation to accept the notion that corruption is inevitable and institutionalised.

Change occurs from the bottom up, not top down.

So, stop looking for a messiah and take responsibility yourself.

Change must be first from the individual. Education, Responsibility, Leadership should be the gradual process.

 

[KB]

I don't think IK will usher in a new era, simply because more and more establishment figures are infiltrating his party.

And this has historical parallels. At the time that the PPP is celebrating its golden jubilee, the above appears a quite apt statement. Today, the PPP is reduced to a rump of members in Sindh, pathetically beholden to a family, reduced to a mere heirloom. But at its height, it was driven, at least in the minds of many of its supporters, by a socially radical and egalitarian vision. The following is based on Phillip Jones’s excellent work on the People’s Party.

The radicalism that animated ideologues 50 years ago had its ideological antecedents in the Progressive Bloc of the Muslim League of the 1940s, through to the Azad Pakistan Party (1953), the Pakistan National Party (1956) and the National Awami Party (1957). In the Punjab, the left gathered around Sheikh Muhammad Rashid (who was a member of the AIML in the 1940s). Acutely aware that the PPP could be subverted from within if it opened its doors to notables and professional politicians, they proposed restrictions on entry. The high command (‘central cell’) of the PPP was was more conservative than the Punjab left (important exceptions being Jalaludin Abdur Rahim and Mairaj Muhammad Khan) and were proponents of a more ‘inclusive’ approach to potential entrants. Some of these members argued that the true opponents were the pro-Western class of indigenous capitalists, who helped perpetuate an imperialism that rendered post-colonial states as not truly free and sovereign. In this reading, it was the capitalists, rather than the landed notables that needed to be opposed.

An example of the clash between the two visions of the PPP is provided by the following example. On 29 March 1969, in a meeting of the Punjab-Bahawalpur Council of the PPP, Taj Langah had proposed that those with class interests contrary to the party’s ideology should only be granted membership in exceptional circumstances and even then should not hold party office or be given a PPP ticket for a period off 3 years. The central cell countered that the PPP should be projected as a ‘united front of progressive and nationalist forces’. They were conscious too, that compared with other parties the PPP possessed fewer funds and the entry of notables could boost the coffers. Crucially, the central cell was supported by Bhutto. At the Lahore Inter-Continental Hotel, Bhutto let rip at the left. Langah informed Phillip Jones, that the ’Inter-Continental meeting was a nightmare for us…We were humiliated in the feudal way.’ The Punjab-Bahawalpur Council would never meet again as Bhutto refused to sanction any such meetings in the future.

Bhutto saw himself as a pragmatic politician, a believer in action. Admitting to being frustrated at times by the left wing intellectuals he said to Jones:

“On the exterior they are intellectuals and the do nothing but sit in coffee houses and drink coffee and have long hair. There is no question of their giving deep thought to the facts of power.”

Bhutto, for whom ‘the facts of power’ could never be disregarded, would seek a broad based coalition, openly courting landed interests. Many landed notables joined from Sindh, although in the Punjab, they would generally join after the 1970 elections (the exceptions were Sadiq Hussain Qureshi and Chadhury Fazal Elahi, both of whom joined just before the 1970 elections).

But there was a price to pay with such a strategy. The entry of political careerists blunted the PPP as an instrument for social change and weakened the organisation. 50 years on and there is little doubt that it is the ‘politicals’ and not the ‘ideologicals’ that dictate PPP policy.

 

[maxamax]

only a fool or one seeking favors through their political connections would support any political entity in Pakistan either religious, military or general.

 

[waleed88]

We should only trust Army political party, that has avenues all over Pakistan and will make sure no has as big a mandate as them in the country..
Look at the business community, our elite of elite...What they want? They dont want/back any political party... They want army to remain in control... In return army keeps their businesses in check.