Understanding Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s failures in local polls

Every government in Pakistan’s history has hesitated to allow the functioning of parallel city, district and local governments through elections. It is quite opposite to democratic traditions elsewhere, as genuine political leadership emerges at the grassroots level. The reason in the case of Pakistan is not difficult to fathom: dynastic politics and the leadership of the assemblies dominated by established political parties wouldn’t like to face competition from newcomers. 

It is after two years of delay and a push from the Supreme Court of Pakistan that the provincial government in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the heartland of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) held its first phase of elections in 17 districts, including the erstwhile tribal regions on December 20. It is a gigantic electoral exercise that involves people, communities, lower-rank party activists and aspiring young leaders. One may gauge the spirit and enthusiasm from the fact that 37,576 candidates are competing for district-city mayors, tehsil chairpersons, and village and neighborhood councils. There are 689 candidates for 35 mayoral and about 130 tehsil chairperson seats, and 19,285 for general seats of councilors. A notable development, and which begs some explanation is that 3,870 women candidates are in the run, of which 876 have been elected unopposed. The local governments function under provincial laws, and for that matter, the template varies from province to province. KP has reserved seats for women, youth, peasants, workers and minorities. This offers an opportunity for the competing parties to increase numbers in the councils by fielding women candidates, which also opens up political space for women to represent themselves and their communities.

Disregarding what these elections could eventually mean for the fortunes of the PTI when all the results are out after the second phase in the middle of January next year, they are the best means to develop democracy at the grassroots level. New and alternative leadership can emerge from these contests, and when local elected institutions function within their given autonomy and resources, their leaders own local problems, offering solutions and help deliver better governance. Good intentions, as claimed by Prime Minister Imran Khan apart, he and his party received a rude shock as the results started pouring in. Still incomplete and held-back for various reasons of violence and disputes, the PTI seems to have lost a lot of ground, and that too to the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). The other two mainstream parties, the PPP and the PMLN have been completely wiped out, just a single candidate holding the party ticket won tehsil chairman seat for each of them. The Jamaat-e-Islami and Awami National Party (ANP) with a considerable social base in parts of this province have not done well either. What has shocked the PTI most is that it could win only one tehsil chairman seat in Peshawar city, the stronghold of its support for the last eight years, and from where it won 5 national and 11 provincial seats. The JUI candidate is leading in the poll for the mayor of Peshawar city, raising many questions about the future of the PTI.

In a first of its kind, Imran Khan has acknowledged the defeat and has attributed it to ‘mistakes’—fielding wrong candidates. This is only one of the reasons though and doesn’t tell the whole story. It is true that the nepotism, the party leaders fielding close relatives, ignored workers and activists and earned their apathy. Although the local elections have very different dynamics than national elections that can be judged from the number of candidates and voter mobilization along caste, tribe and local community alliances, they do serve as a barometer of wider national political trends. The economic factors appear to be more at work against the incumbent PTI more than the ‘faulty strategy’ as an explanation. Inflation, unemployment and bad governance are perennial issues, but the party that came to fix everything, short of a revolution, has faltered on ‘change’ disappointing many of its supporters.

Maybe all is not lost as yet, and a better electoral strategy and Khan assuming the charge of the next phase of elections could produce better dividends-- but prospects are cloudy at best. The PTI has internal discipline and organizational issues that continue to dissipate its energies and attention, which is one of the obvious reasons for its recent debacle. Facing a collective fall, the leaders may be able to address incoherence and disunity among their ranks, but the bigger challenges are unstoppable inflation, rising cost of food items, power outages and poor service delivery. The PTI will have to do more to stay the dominant party than tempering with its electoral strategy for local elections.

*Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Twitter: @RasulRais