Learning from AJK elections

PTI’s poor performance in AJK elections, indicates an almost complete rejection by people of its politics

The AJK election results generated the same kind of controversy as those in Pakistan in 2013. With the PML-N winning majority of the seats (31 out of 41), the PPP and the MC three seats each, the PTI two seats and the JKPP one seat, there is much hue and cry about electoral rigging. But if rigging was a possibility, then with the army presence the tide could have turned in some other direction, but it didn’t. This in itself proves that people voted according to popular trends and dominant perceptions. There is certainly a need for introspection amongst major political parties regarding what these results reflect and where they went wrong. The fact of the matter is that most parties were poor at assessing expectations and needs of the ordinary Kashmiri on this side of the border. A number of parties incorrectly assumed that the elections in AJK would be influenced by rhetoric pertaining to the politics of India-held Kashmir and flagging the issue of state atrocities there. If that had been the case, then the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), which has always been most vocal about the issue, should have won the elections. However, the JI hardly gets votes in AJK. The last time it won a seat was in 1996.

In fact, the two key issues that determine favourable results in AJK elections are baradari (clan), and who can get financial assistance from Pakistan. Your clan and its connections are critical but even this factor does not apply everywhere as people’s desire to bring improvement in their living standards is becoming increasingly more important. This makes the government in power in Islamabad a critical factor because on that depends the flow of resources to AJK. But one must not underestimate two additional factors. First, the PML-N’s choice of leadership in the form of Raja Farooq Haider, who over the years has developed the reputation of being bold, courageous and honest, helped in getting people interested. The choice of better leadership compounded with his association with a party that was seen as influential in getting resources from Islamabad turned the tide for the PML-N. Second, there was the incumbency factor which means that dissatisfaction with the PPP’s performance played a major role in shifting votes away from it towards a party that is seen as performing better in Punjab.

Unfortunately, the PPP leadership didn’t seem informed about public perception about the party, especially the fact that it was viewed as a perpetrator of naked corruption. This is almost the same problem that it had faced in the rest of Pakistan in 2013 due to which it lost seats in most of the country barring Sindh. The PPP and its leadership were certainly not watching the tide going against the party. Now that some of its candidates are blaming their loss on lack of support from the party’s local leadership or sheer duplicitous behaviour, one wonders if the PPP’s top leaders will ever realise that its chances of winning were always very slim. The party blindly assumed it could at least win a bit more than five seats because it had constructed three medical colleges and four new universities for the first time ever in AJK. Nonetheless, just like what happened to the party in Multan where former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani could not cash in on the development he brought to his city, the PPP in AJK was haunted by the image of corruption, inefficiency and incompetence. There was a widespread impression that its prime minister was impotent and all the important decisions regarding lucrative contracts, appointments and transfers were taken by a couple of people sitting in Islamabad in return for money.

The PTI’s poor performance, on the other hand, indicates an almost complete rejection by people of its politics. For people in Kashmir, the party had lost its glow as the party of change. It was seen more as a forum that pursued status quo politics. People’s expectations from the PTI would not have dashed so rapidly had it not underperformed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The allegations of corruption, infighting and inclusion of turncoats damaged its possibilities.

In many respects, the AJK elections reflect the same trends as in mainland Pakistan with which it is very much connected, at least politically and economically. Those that don’t learn will continue to fail in the future as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2016.

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