By: S.M.A. Kazmi
Modern democracy, as we know it, didn’t emerge fully formed. It evolved — often awkwardly, sometimes violently — through centuries of conflict between elites and the people they claimed to represent. At the heart of this evolution lies the story of political parties: how they began, how they changed, and how, in places like Pakistan, they continue to be reimagined.
Let’s start at the beginning. The earliest modern political parties — born in 18th-century Europe and the United States — were exclusive clubs of privilege. These cadre parties were elite formations, built by and for wealthy landowners, aristocrats, and capitalists. They didn’t need the working class or women, because the working class and women didn’t vote. Politics was an insiders’ game.
But as industrialisation boomed and the working class expanded, it became impossible to ignore their growing numbers. Some reform-minded elites realised that suffrage could no longer be limited to their own kind — and with that, the mass party was born. These parties tapped into the grievances of ordinary people, organising them at the grassroots and pushing for reforms. This was the DNA behind Europe’s social democratic parties, Britain’s Labour Party, and eventually even the US Democratic Party.
Ironically, even the far right learned from the success of mass parties. Fascist parties took on the structure of mass politics — but stripped it of democracy, replacing pluralism with nationalism, hierarchy, and ideological purity. The message was simple: one people, one leader, one nation.
Pakistan’s Own Party Story
In South Asia, the All India Muslim League began as a classic cadre party — a tool of Muslim elites. But as the 1930s rolled in, the League expanded its reach, recasting itself as a mass party to rally Indian Muslims ahead of partition. After independence, however, the trajectory of party politics in Pakistan became more fractured — and more experimental.
By the 1950s, economic aspirations were shifting. As middle-class identity took root and the working classes began to aim for upward mobility, class conflict gradually receded in electoral politics. This trend wasn’t unique to Pakistan — in fact, it was global. With that, political parties rebranded once again, this time into big tent parties — broad coalitions of left, right, centre, and everything in between.
Big tent parties are the political equivalent of a buffet — trying to serve a little bit of everything to as many people as possible. From America’s Democratic and Republican parties to Britain’s Conservatives and Labour, this catch-all model dominated 20th-century democracy. Pakistan’s own version emerged in 1967 with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — a melting pot of Marxists, Islamic socialists, liberal ulema, and Sindhi landlords. On the conservative side, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) followed, gathering industrialists, traders, and right-leaning bourgeoisie under its umbrella.
For a while, this model worked. But, like all things political, it changed.
From Big Tents to Cartels
By the 2000s, both the PPP and PML-N had slowly morphed into what political scientist Richard Katz calls cartel parties — still broad-based, but now more concerned with protecting their own turf than pushing bold new visions. These parties began cooperating behind closed doors, not to serve democracy, but to block emerging players.
That complacency came at a price. Around the world, populist movements began to rise, fuelled by anger at elites, corruption, and inequality. In Pakistan, the military establishment — tired of what it saw as the stagnant politics of the PPP and PML-N — backed a new “third force”: Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).
Khan’s rise was textbook populism: a charismatic leader, a loyal base, and a politics built on moral outrage. His message was clear: we (the people) are good, they (the elites) are bad. It was a political fan club more than a political party — high on energy, low on structure.
The Populist Problem
This, as many political theorists have warned, is the populist paradox. Unlike mass parties of the past — which had ideology, hierarchy, and grassroots organisation — populist movements thrive on personality, performative rallies, and vague promises. They rarely transition into institutions; instead, they burn bright, fast, and often destructively.
Even when populists win power, as Khan did, they struggle to govern. Trump in the US faced the same dilemma — his “movement” was never meant to run a state; it was built to fight one. And when PTI’s time in power ended through a constitutional vote of no-confidence in 2022, it collapsed into disarray.
A Hybrid Workaround?
What came next in Pakistan is what makes its political story so fascinating. Instead of fully returning to old-style party politics, the military establishment recalibrated. It returned to the PPP and PML-N, the old big tent parties — but plugged them into a more institutionalised hybrid system. In this version, civilian governance and military oversight coexist in an uneasy alliance.
Some see this as Pakistan’s way of solving the crisis of political parties. Rather than allow populist chaos or return to stagnant cartel politics, this hybrid model aims to strike a balance: experienced parties, backed by stabilising (though controversial) institutional support.
Whether it will work is another question entirely. Hybrid models carry their own risks — legitimacy deficits, authoritarian creep, and democratic erosion, to name a few. But in Pakistan’s context, where political instability is the norm, it may be a form of crisis management that buys time for deeper reforms.
Final Thoughts
The journey from elite cadre clubs to messy populist uprisings is not linear — it’s a cycle, a pendulum swing between control and chaos. Pakistan’s experiment with political parties reflects both global patterns and unique local challenges.
The country’s current path — a hybrid of big tent pragmatism and institutional engineering — might seem cynical to some, but it also offers a sober recognition of the limits of both populism and elite politics.
Ultimately, democracy is not just about votes — it’s about organisation, participation, and legitimacy. Pakistan’s political class would do well to remember that as they navigate whatever comes next.
