PML-N’s ‘revolution’ kicks off

The PML-N kicked off its ‘go Zardari go’ campaign in Lahore on October 28. The procession was not attended by the party’s main leader Mian Nawaz Sharif, who was away on a foreign visit. Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister’s son, came to speak, but it seems that the crowds wanted his father who spoke to the crowd later (this newspaper also reported that a significant proportion of the participants seems to have been brought to the venue from outside Lahore).

There is no way a Pakistani popular leader can be told what his representational flaws are. Who can tell Shahbaz Sharif that his rather tiresome style of singing Habib Jalib has run its course and arouses no emotion; that his wild flailing of arms across the bristling mikes in front of him is now nothing more than a boring pantomime. His accusations contained all the predictable charges against the PPP government and President Asif Ali Zardari: corruption; abysmal governance causing shortages of public amenities all over Pakistan; and slavery of the US.

Zardari’s hate-speech troubleshooter Babar Awan was on hand in Lahore to direct barbs at the flaws in Shahbaz Sharif’s own kingdom where he rules autocratically, using public funds and local government transport to do the party’s work. Governor Khosa pitched in too, accusing the Punjab government of abusing its authority at the rally, indicating the shape of things to come in the battle ahead which the PML-N firebrand Saad Rafiq says will reach its climax in December-January with a ‘Long March’ to Islamabad. The crowds thought Nawaz Sharif would be there at Bhaati Gate but he was out of the country, although he did address his own rally a couple of days ago where he railed against the president and the ruling party.

If there were two poles in the party — the hawks led by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the lone moderate Nawaz Sharif — that of Chaudhry Nisar won the day. This pole has fostered the development of the typical PML-N voter who was brought up on the reflex of the mid-term toppling of governments in the 1990s. Of course, one reason for this rally is to forestall the Senate elections that are scheduled for March 2012 and which could see the PPP gain a commanding lead in the upper house of parliament. To this end, Shahbaz Sharif, who seems to be in the camp opposing his elder brother, had been predicting a ‘bloody revolution’. The other factor which must have goaded the party to make its presence known to all and sundry must be the Imran Khan factor, with his rallies in Punjab increasingly gaining a large audience.

The rise of Imran Khan and his formerly rather amoebic party — people still don’t know who the man next to Imran Khan is — has startled the PML-N. While Shahbaz Sharif avoided reference to him in Lahore, Khan was busy attending a jirga in Islamabad protesting American drone attacks, endearing him to the anti-US establishment. Nawaz Sharif is anti-American too, but not as tough and rash as Khan. And agitation experts know that politics of Manichaean contrasts works far better with the common man. Khan’s right-wing pro-Taliban posture threatens to go down well with the pro-Taliban Sipah-e-Sahaba elements that the PML-N has been wooing. A word of support from North Waziristan may be all that is needed.

Surveys show that Nawaz Sharif is the most popular leader in the country, although he is a few notches down from his standing in the past. Shahbaz Sharif is next, followed by Imran Khan; but Zardari is plumbing the depths of unpopularity. This index is upset by the fact that Khan and Nawaz Sharif are going to damage each other at the polls whenever they take place. Hence the subliminal message is that the PML-N will accept an ouster of the PPP through non-electoral means. That will suit Khan too because then he will get into the ruling echelon on the basis of his increased street clout instead of the elections where he is not expected to do much more than improve his party’s standing in the country. After the All Parties Conference, this is the next instalment of political abdication in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2011.