QWP struggles to stay above water

Party hemorrhaging ‘electable’ personalities

SHABQADAR: Amid the rise of a new movement championing the cause of ethnic unity on common grounds, a major party in the province has been hemorrhaging lawmakers of late, putting its chances in the upcoming elections under an ominous cloud.

The Qaumi Watan Party (QWP), led by the former interior minister and two time chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, has built its support over its claims to raise its voice for the substantial Pashtun population of the province.



But of late, it has seen that its stance has not been garnering as much attention as it used to, particularly among its party with at least six of the ten lawmakers it has in the provincial assembly, having quit the party to join rivals ahead of the general election 2018.

Abdul Kareem Khan, a QWP lawmaker from Swabi, became the latest MPA of the party to defect, announcing on May 10 that he had joined the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Kareem had been preceded by the likes of QWP provincial general secretary and MPA from lower Dir Bakht Baidar Khan who pledged his allegiance to the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Earlier, two QWP lawmakers including Sultan Muhammad Khan and Miraj Humayun joined the PTI. Ibarar Tanoli quit QWP to join the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) while Akbar Nawaz Khan joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).



Meanwhile, while Khalid Khan Mohmand is still bartering with the PTI for his defection.

Should Mohmand defect, it would leave just Sherpao’s brother Sikandar, Arshad Umerzai and Anisazeb Tahirkheli as QWP lawmakers in the provincial assembly — and this before the term of the ongoing government ends.

Journalist Shamim Shahid, who witnessed Sherpao’s journey from being part of PPP to creating his own faction and then his own party, told The Express Tribune that when Sherpao parted ways with PPP in the mid-nineties, he had 70 electable such as Pervez Khattak, Mureed Kazim, Bakht Baidar and even former president  Farooq Leghari.

However, Sherpao found the going tough with few takers for his nationalist politics. He had to rely on help from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal to secure a seat for himself and another from Buner in the national assembly. He fared a little better for the provincial assembly during the 2002 elections.



In the 2008 elections, the party only received support from Charsadda. Fast forward 10 years on, Shahid claimed that QWP had lost all of its electable candidates.

QWP’s Tariq Ahmad Khan, though, is optimistic. He contended that it was not only QWP who has lost seven MPs, rather, other parties too are losing their members.

He went on to argue that as the political temperature rises ahead of the elections, they have gained some electables too.

When asked to name them, he did not take any names.  Tariq was also coy when asked how many seats would the QWP contest in the upcoming elections, stating that the party has yet to come to a decision on that.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2018.