The last lap

PML-N still stands to sweep the next elections if it actually succeeds in getting rid of power outages completely

Pakistan is poised to enter a long-drawn election year as it bids farewell to 2016 midnight tonight. The political momentum that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had tried to build during the outgoing year hammering the Panama Papers scandal is likely to gather pace with the Supreme Court starting afresh its legal probe to trace the trail of the money with which the UK properties were bought by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children. A verdict, one way or the other, will have a decisive impact on the political fortunes of the ruling PML-N and the PTI. A verdict in favour of the PML-N is likely to help it to return with a bigger margin of votes and seats. An unfavourable one for the ruling party, on the other hand, is likely to help the PTI sweep Punjab which would perhaps brighten its chances of forming the government in Islamabad.

And since both the PPP and the MQM are in total disarray, the chances of PTI making some substantive gains in the province including its capital, Karachi cannot be ruled out but for that to happen the Party will have to gain the confidence of the provincial voters, both urban and rural. It has to be seen in Sindh as its own and not a party of outsiders. Imran Khan can help create the perception by shifting his headquarters from Islamabad to Karachi. The chances of the PML-N making any significant in-roads into Sindh politics, despite the political mess into which the PPP and the MQM have drowned themselves, seem too remote because even after having remained in power at the national level thrice, the Party continues to be seen in Sindh as a Punjabi party and not a national one.

In the case of the MQM its three factions—the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) of Mustafa Kamal, the MQM-Pakistan of Farooq Sattar and the MQM-London of Altaf Hussain, are likely to neutralise each other by making aggressive bids for the original vote bank of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The PPP of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) and Benazir Bhutto was an ideological political platform. Now it is no more so. The party that Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari is trying to bequeath to chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is not even a faint copy of the original. It seems more like a fake imitation of ZAB’s PPP. Without its ideological plank, the PPP of Asif and Bilawal seems more like a bunch of opportunists. The way this party had governed Sindh over the last eight years renders it totally unfit to even rule Larkana district. If at all Zardari wants Bilawal to learn the Parliamentary ropes, he should be given a free hand and not with the father keeping a close watch on his performance from within Parliament. It was a pathetic sight to see former president Farooq Khan Leghari futilely trying as a member of the National Assembly to make his presence felt in the House. A similar fate seems to be awaiting former president AAZ when as per his decision he enters the National Assembly through a by-election in the last lap of the current House.

The performance of the PTI in K-P has been relatively much better than the performances of the PML-N in Balochistan and the PPP in Sindh. In fact, in some sectors, like health, education and law and order the provincial government in K-P has performed much better than the Punjab provincial government despite the step-motherly treatment of the Peshawar government by Islamabad. K-P is the only province which has transferred powers of governance and adequate financial resources to the elected local governments of the province. In the two larger provinces — Punjab and Sindh — the ruling parties have literally killed the very spirit of local government by keeping almost all the functions of local governments in the hands of the provincial administrations and they have also deprived their respective local governments of the financial resources that by law should have been transferred to the latter.

Of course, despite all its failings the PML-N still stands to retain its political preeminence and sweep the next elections if by the time they are due, it had actually succeeded in getting rid of power outages completely.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2016.

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