An article on Maryam Nawaz in Guardian.
Maryam Sharif feels the love as she canvasses for her father, who is likely to become Pakistan's PM for a third time
Jason Burke in Lahore
Saturday 27 April 2013
The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/pakistan-nawaz-sharif-daughter-maryam
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The convoy slows. In front of the candidate's vehicle, men dance. Rose petals are hurled from the rooftops. Motorbikes swarm. "Look, look who is coming," supporters shout. A white tiger on top of a van yawns and stretches a paw. A small child and a 90-year-old party worker are hauled through the crowd to offer garlands.
"It's a beautiful feeling to be loved," says Maryam Sharif, leaning back in the seat of her luxury SUV three days into her first election campaign. "My shoulders hurt from waving six hours a day. I need to learn to wave wisely."
Sharif's constituency is in the heart of Lahore, the second biggest city of Pakistan. In two weeks, the nuclear power, so crucial to western strategy in the region and the fight against Islamist extremism worldwide, will hold a general election. It will be the first time in the 66 years since independence that one democratically elected civilian government will serve out its full term and be replaced by another.
Every day bombs kill three, four, a dozen. The last election, held in 2008, had been postponed after Benazir Bhutto, the two-time former prime minister, was assassinated by extremists at a rally. Despite continuing violence, authorities say these polls will be held on time.
Maryam Sharif is not actually standing herself. She is canvassing on behalf of the candidate in National Assembly Constituency 120. This is Nawaz Sharif, president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N, and the man who polls predict is likely to become prime minister for the third time when the votes are finally counted. He was first elected from this constituency in 1985 at the start of his political career. Maryam is his daughter.
"I didn't know what to expect but the response is massive. Every household is showering us with petals, throwing garlands. It's so invigorating. I didn't know the love for Nawaz Sharif until I went into the field campaigning," she says.
In Lahore, capital of Punjab province, the Sharifs are on home turf. The family live on a sprawling estate south of the city. At elections in 2008 they swept the city itself and won control, too, of Punjab province, the richest and most influential part of Pakistan. Maryam's uncle, Shahbaz, was chief minister of Lahore until elections were called last month.
"It's in the genes but it's not a family affair," Maryam, 39, says quickly. Pakistan is not short of political dynasties. The most famous is the Bhuttos. Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People's party (PPP) and won power in the 1970s before being deposed and hanged by military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Her 24-year-old son Bilawal, a recent Oxford graduate, is joint chairman of the party. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, is president and the effective leader of the outgoing PPP government. The threat to Bilawal from extremists is so high he can barely campaign, addressing small crowds under heavy security.
Maryam, a mother of three, met Benazir Bhutto once, during the Sharifs' eight-year exile that followed the military coup that ended her own father's most recent spell as prime minister in 1999. Despite their ideological differences, the older woman left an "indelible impression", Maryam said.
The charismatic Benazir Bhutto, educated at Oxford and Harvard, instinctively pro-western, culturally Muslim rather than personally devout, enjoyed deep support in western capitals. But Nawaz Sharif has long inspired suspicion overseas and the 63-year-old business magnate's continued popularity has perplexed many.
But, analysts say, the very factors that jar with western diplomats are those that guarantee support among a large number of Pakistanis. Most recent polls say that Sharif's PML-N will win 41% of the votes in the forthcoming election. The party's own predictions are more conservative but still point to a significant victory.
At the party's newly refurbished campaign headquarters in Lahore's plush suburb of Model Town, rows of young workers sit at screens monitoring live TV broadcasts and social media. They are focused not on the national news channels followed largely by the elite, still less the English-language press or Twitter, but on the hugely popular local channels and Urdu-language publications.
Campaign workers say they believe 20% of the 85 million who can vote in two weeks are undecided. Of the core PML-N vote, only a sixth are in the big cities, they say. Most are in medium-sized towns unknown in the west. And Nawaz Sharif's fortune is seen as something to aspire to, not criticise.
The family also have a reputation for religious and social conservatism and being close to Jamaat-e-Islami, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Early support came from Zia ul-Haq, who launched a broad-ranging Islamisation campaign in Pakistan. When in power in the 1990s, Sharif pushed legislation strengthening traditional Islamic law in Pakistan, though supporters said the aim was to outflank the right. When forced into exile, by a military coup, the Sharifs were offered a haven by Saudi Arabia.
Equally disconcerting for Washington, Nawaz Sharif opposed Pakistan's support for the US-led "war on terror" and has called for an end to the drone strikes in the restive west of the country that have killed scores of top al-Qaida militants in recent years.
But if this worries the west, it strikes a chord with many Pakistani voters, particularly outside the urban elite. The core constituency, say party strategists, is "small town small traders". "We get called provincial and narrow-minded. But that's fine. We aren't. Our message is, 'Let's continue to build a better Pakistan'. It's about their hopes," one said.
The main opposition in the Punjab is no longer the Bhuttos and their PPP but Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician. His Pakistan Movement for Justice party has attracted many, especially among the young, who want change. "They are sick of the same old faces. Sharif has done nothing to help the people in this constituency. Their basic needs of health, education, security are not being met," said Dr Yasmin Rasheed, a 63-year-old former gynaecologist campaigning for Khan against Maryam and her father.
Rasheed's supporters repeat well-known allegations of graft and incompetence during Sharif's earlier times in power when, it is claimed, cronies were loaned huge sums from state banks and tariffs manipulated to favour the family's business interests. PML-N officials deny the charges and point to the party's history of "competent management" which they say brought the country motorways, better relations with neighbouring India and successful, if controversial, nuclear tests in 1998. They point, too, to more recent development in Lahore, such as the ambitious new Metro Bus public transport system. The massive power cuts are blamed on the federal government.
Maryam Sharif's entry into politics – and talk of her as a potential future leader – also counters another image problem: that the party is too male.
"When you see the leader's daughter come forward then that shows the open mindset of the leadership allowing space for women in senior positions," said Anusha Rehman, a former PML parliamentarian and key official.
However, few claim that the leaders of the party share the suffering of the common people in Pakistan. Nor perhaps would voters expect or want them to. Though the NA-120 constituency includes the newly widened streets of central Lahore, there are many neighbourhoods where families live in dark one-room apartments with intermittent electricity and minimal sanitation. Food prices are soaring. Pockets of malnutrition and disease remain.
"It's not your financial status, it's the will to do something for others that matters. On the street, I am part of their ordeal. It's not about the class you belong to … it's the compassion you hold in your heart," Maryam said.
Outside the crowd is thicker than before. Meat shops line this street and the petals falling from rooftops land amid bones and blood. "Look who's coming," the party activists shout. Grinning butchers wave gory hands. The candidate's smiling daughter waves back.
He needs to get some sleep.
