Pakistan’s election campaign heating up
Despite some exciting developments during the weekend, Pakistan’s politics continues to be in a state of complete flux, where predictions will be too premature, and even assessments can be misleading. But one point can be safely stressed that is the change, the country has long been yearning for, seems to be finally on the horizon. This wind of change is whether for good or worse is difficult to answer at this point in time.
For cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, the Minar-e-Pakistan rally at Lahore on Pakistan Day, March 23, was a real success that boosted his image enormously, forcing former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to demonstrate an equally powerful show of strength at a rally in Mansehra, a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa town, bordering Punjab a couple of days later. Both these events have drawn considerable attention from political pundits, most of whom seem unanimous that the real fight for supremacy will be between Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Pakistan Muslim League (N), especially in the main battlefield of Punjab, which because of being the largest province, has the highest number of National Assembly seats. The province represents 148 seats out of total of 272 in the entire country.
With elections being less than 50 days away, expectations had also heightened on the return after four years of exile of former President Pervez Musharraf. His scores of supporters turned up at the Karachi airport, defying security restrictions and braving the simmering heat for long hours, only to be left disappointed in the end as Musharraf could not respond to the cheers of his supporters in absence of a public address system. He uttered a few sentences, which remained inaudible to the flag-waving and slogan-chanting crowd. From the airport he was whisked away under heavy police cordon to a hotel in the heart of the city. He spent all day, meeting people inside his suite for more than 24 hours.
The former president has returned to Pakistan amid an open threat of Taleban vowing to send suicide bombers for him, but why did he accept the viewpoint of security advisers to remain aloof from the public when he is determined to participate in general elections?
Such a response from him to a rising wave of enthusiasm in the country appeared surprising, especially when Musharraf had himself disclosed that he had reached a new understanding with the military, relied more on army’s than civilian security. He was provided a bulletproof car, and heavy security cordon but a politician’s real assets are the masses. Whether he is busy in drawing a new strategy to launch himself for electioneering after reaching Islamabad, remains to be seen. But analysts agree that time is of essence now.
Musharraf already suffers from a number of handicaps, each more important than the other. His announcement to contest elections from all four provinces requires a solid base, and a party structure, which is yet to be seen.
As for the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ride seems to be quite bumpy, and Asif Ali Zardari, facing legal hurdles, has finally resigned from the party leadership in a bid to pre-empt a hostile verdict from the Lahore High Court. A senior anchorperson, with sound professional reputation, however claimed publicly in his TV interview, that Bilawal Bhutto seemed unhappy with the father, and has refused to be the party chief. The PPP now has made him patron in chief. The party reshuffled the hierarchy, replacing old loyalist Jahangir Badar to pass on the mantle of the party’s secretary general post to former Punjab Gov. Lateef Khosa. It also appointed a new person as central information secretary in place of former Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira.
The absence of a party chief points to the fact Zardari and his party have lost considerable face in the country because of an unprecedented misgovernance and the failure to halt the economic meltdown. Generally the hope has begun to build around Nawaz Sharif, whose younger brother, Shahbaz, has done much better than others in his stronghold of Punjab province.
Nawaz is being seen as the next head of government, and if he musters a substantial strength in the National Assembly, and retains his hold in his home province of Punjab, he may make things difficult for Zardari to seek another term as president beyond August this year. But much would depend, on whether Nawaz also wins significant number of seats from the rest of the three provinces. He may benefit from alliance with Pir Pagara’s Muslim League. But nothing could yet be said about his chances in the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan and an equally unstable Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
While the real picture will take another three to four weeks to emerge, next two weeks may help build some kind of a hazy scene. Till then, a wait and see approach alone will have to be relied upon.
