Mr Farooq Leghari’s Millat Party was launched at an impressive Convention in Lahore on August 14th. The Convention was attended by about 2000 delegates and observers from all over Pakistan, including over 300 former and current counsellors, MPAs, MNAs, Ministers and Advisors. Significantly, about 300 women delegates and scores of professionals and technocrats were also in attendance, as were hundreds of urban and rural middle-class young men and a sprinkling of minority representatives rarely seen on such occasions. That all this was accomplished in less than six months after Mr Leghari resigned from the Presidency is no mean accomplishment è even Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took nearly fifteen months after leaving office to float his Peoples Party in 1968. Mr Leghari’s hour-long speech, in which he lambasted both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and pointed the way forward, seemed to come from the heart.
As expected, though, there has been some adverse comment in the press. Some of it is perfectly understandable. Not everyone is persuaded that there is scope for yet another political party, given the plethora of failed parties on the landscape and the tenacity with which the two main parties continue to woo their constituencies. Nor are many people convinced that Mr Leghari, who lacks Ms Bhutto’s purple charisma or Mr Sharif’s deep pocket, has it within himself to rise to the radical challenge of these tumultuous times. Only time will tell whether such views are correct or not.
But some criticism is self-serving and unjustified. The very people who complain, for example, that “no major heavyweight politicians” have joined the Millat Party, would have complained doubly if some heavyweights had actually done so for then Mr Leghari would have been confronted with headlines screaming “Lotas and discredited people join Millat Party!”. In fact, most disreputable heavyweights are already ensconced in the PML and PPP and it is to Mr Leghari’s credit that he has positively shunned many heavyweights who are out of power. After all, a new party with a new agenda which looks to the future should comprise new faces who are not soiled by the past. (How many senior members of Mr Z A Bhutto’s PPP in 1968, it might be asked, were known heavyweights of the time?)
But these are minor matters. At the end of the day, the success of the Millat Party as not merely the third party but the “third force” will depend not only on Mr Leghari’s perceived strengths and shortcomings but also on those of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. There are thus two routes open to Mr Leghari. He can either opt for a stolid, middle-of-the-road, non-controversial approach which neither alienates nor excites anyone in particular in the hope that, come election day, Benazir Bhutto will have been electorally disqualified by Nawaz Sharif on account of her corruption and maladministration and Nawaz Sharif will have been discredited among the people on account of his corruption and maladministration, leaving Mr Leghari as the only decent, untried politician of national stature in the field. The problem of this “leadership-by-default” approach, however, is that so much can happen between now and the next election three years hence (apart from the certainty of massive electoral rigging by Nawaz Sharif) that Mr Leghari could be swept away, along with other politicians, by powerful forces or extraordinary events which are already swelling in the bowels of Pakistan.
The second approach is for Mr Leghari to try and position himself among the people of this country in such a way that he is able to ride the stormy waves that lie ahead and chart out a new route for Pakistan. As we know, politicians stand totally discredited as a species just as democracy stands totally violated as a political system. The future is especially looking uncertain and dismal. Apart from the socio-economic strains of a decade of bad governance, loot and plunder, the federal structure also faces considerable stress. Mr Leghari must therefore say or do something which is so extraordinary that it shakes the people out of their lethargy and disillusionment, sparks their imagination, rekindles their hope and moves them to root for him above any other politician or party. Crucial to this scenario, therefore, will be Mr Leghari’s ability to create one major perception in the country ― that he is the dynamic leader of a hopeful future whereas both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are moribund leaders of a sordid past.
But this is easier said than done. If Mr Leghari wants to make a Pakistani omelette, he will have to break some Pakistani eggs first. This requires taking bold, innovative, anti-status quo positions on a host of issues which set him apart from the rest of the political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and demonstrate his abiding faith in the people of Pakistan to make rational decisions when faced with the crunch. Above all, it requires a simple but radical agenda for change which cuts across caste, class, gender, sect, creed, region, trade, vocation or profession without fear or favour of vested interests.