How Radical is the Pakistan People's Party?

Abstract

T HIS ARTICLE is built around four themes. The first, through broad comparative analysis, tries to explain why the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in the i97o elections was successful in Punjab and unsuccessful in the North-West Frontier Province. The second deals with ideological unity, or lack of it, among the upper levels of PPP leadership: what conservative positions did certain landlords and upper middle-class leaders take with regard to Socialism and what positions did the minority of this upper level leadership take during the elections with regard to this central ideological issue? The third theme examines how the constituency-level leadership or party workers were oriented towards Socialism and what role they performed in the election campaign (the data for this part relating only to some of the key constituencies in Lahore City). The fourth part indicates that the ascent to power may lie through radicalization, but the leadership, in augmenting that power, often resorts to de-radicalization both in policymaking and in party-building. In the Punjab, the PPP won 62 out of the 82 National Assembly seats or 75.6 per cent of the seats. In the Provincial Elections, it won ii2 out of 179 seats in the Punjab Assembly. On the other hand, in the Frontier Province, it won only one out of 25 National Assembly seats and only 3 out of 40 Provincial Assembly seats. In the Frontier, the Qayyum Muslim League won 7 out of 25 National Assembly seats, followed by the Jamiatulama-i-Islam (JUI) with 6 seats, the National Awami Party (NAP) with 3, and Independents with 7. In the Provincial Assembly (40 seats), the National Awami Party led with i3, followed by the Qayyum Muslim League (QML) with io, Jamiat-ulama-i-Islam (4), PPP (i). Does this mean that the Indus River was the great divide-to the east the semi-prosperous Punjab, where the PPP with its espousal of Islamic Socialism won, to the west the relatively poorer Frontier which returned more conservative and tribal or ethnic-oriented parties? Has the influence of the baradari (endogamous group of families) declined in many parts