Under the Gun: Political Parties and Violence in Pakistan

Political violence between parties is endemic to Pakistan, both during and between election cycles. In the sprawling, multiethnic megacity of Karachi, which is flooded with guns from the period of the Soviet-Afghan war, both the Awami National Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement have engaged in assassinations, extortion, and violent protests in recent years to protect the physical and economic turf of their ethnic constituencies. In the same city, the Pakistan People’s Party let an ethnic militia do its dirty work. In Punjab, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz campaigned alongside leaders of a violent sectarian group in order to get more votes. And in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, the same Awami National Party that used violence in Karachi has run for office peacefully. Through resourceful case studies, Siddiqui teases out the differences among these four parties. She looks at how local authorities variously struggle to keep the peace. Where state capacity is weak, parties will use violence when they have the support of an ethnic, religious, or ideological constituency that tolerates or even rewards them for doing so. Finally, a party’s organizational strength explains whether it may deploy its own supporters to attack rivals or get help from sectarian militias or criminal gangs.