NA-19 result: The writing is on the wall

Babar’s highest votes in K-P history sends alarm bells ringing among political dynasties

HARIPUR: Gone are the days when the chosen few would elect leaders from amongst themselves to represent the underprivileged masses—or so it seems. Babar Nawaz Khan’s victory in Haripur on a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz ticket has rewritten history.

The late Akhtar Nawaz Khan’s son secured the highest number of votes in the history of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa when he clinched the NA-19 seat.

The chain of events over the past few months has been such that both the Rajgans and the Tareens were overturned. Although PML-N maintains its position as Haripur’s strongest party, dynastic figureheads have now been replaced by a political rookie who intends to achieve all good things possible for his people.

Unofficial results suggest Babar secured a whopping 137,219 votes, followed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Dr Raja Amir Zaman who ended up with 90,698 ballots to his name. Even the visits of Imran Khan and the deliberations of Reham Khan could not help the latter. Pakistan Peoples Party’s Tahir Qureshi followed with 1,396 votes. According to a notification, the overall turnout stood at 41.2%.



The victory is particularly outstanding because Babar had to ward off both the mighty PTI and voices of dissent within his own party. A party insider revealed when the 28-year-old was being considered for the ticket, both the provincial and district chapters disagreed. National Assembly Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi and MNA Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar stood by Babar during this period.

Bloodlines

How could the others really invest their trust in a political nobody against notables? Amir’s campaign leader Yusuf Ayub Khan is on good terms with several PML-N district leaders and the PTI candidate’s very in-laws are the Pirs of Mohra Sharif – the clan of PML-N K-P President Pir Sabir Shah. Sabir’s nephew Sahibzada Hamid Shah heads the party in Haripur. Hamid is also on excellent terms with the Tareens. Omar Ayub Khan also took a jab at Babar. After bowing out of the race, he initially announced his support for the PML-N candidate, but subsequently filed a review petition with the Supreme Court, calling for a stay order on the by-poll.

Looking ahead

Now that the dots have been joined, it is clear the victory now heralds a shakedown within the party; the lackadaisical outlook of many in Babar’s campaign has been noticed closely. After the May 30 local government polls debacle, the behaviour has only cemented the doubts of the central leadership further.

The matter was due to be settled last month and was only delayed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as he oversaw NA-19 preps. Now that the bumpy road has ended, action can be expected sooner than later.

Nawazish Khan, an educationist commenting on Babar’s success, said the election is the result of a slowly rising lower-middleclass revolution in Haripur. “The voters have taken their revenge against the two families for failing to deliver multiple times,” said councillor-elect Basharat Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2015.