A crucial struggle

There is a close fight for control between PTI and PML-N that has held Punjab for the last two electoral cycles.

Punjab is, as ever, the political cockpit and there is a close fight for control between a surfing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) that has held the province for the last two electoral cycles. Both have announced that they are to form the provincial government and with the PML-N bleeding and defeated in many places and the PTI surging from Chitral to Karachi the struggle is bitter. The PML-N has a strong right of entitlement born of length of office and the power of the Sharif family in the wider sense. The PTI is — in most places besides Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa — the upstart, the iconoclast with a track record of very little outside K-P and nothing to show at all in Punjab, yet Punjabi voters decided to take a chance and the dynasts may yet be packing their bags.

At the time of writing, there are four seats between the parties — 127 PML-N and 123 PTI — but in the pool are a range of independents and it is they who are going to be the kingmakers, and courted by both sides assiduously. There are 29 of them alongside 13 other lesser winners that will also hear their phones ringing. All will have noted that the party most likely to form a government at the Centre is the PTI even though it lacks an overall majority; and that the PML-N is the most likely candidate for the leader of the opposition in the next parliament, a powerful factor when deciding which way to jump.

What is happening in Punjab is happening or has happened to a greater or lesser degree across the country. Unverifiable cries of rigging on a ‘massive scale’ come from everywhere except the PTI and those that might benefit from the warmth of its winning generosity in victory. Calls for a rerun of the entire election are going nowhere, and even the defeated parties are wary of losing what it is that they have won in terms of seats by refusing to take the oath. It is WYSIWYG time — what you see is what you get. We watch with interest.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2018.

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