Accepting reality

There was no fuss or media drama. No public wailing or weeping or covering with ashes, but there was a significant surrender in the last week on the political battlefield. It happened within the confines of Adiala jail and sees a fall from power of a political dynasty that until the Panama Papers hove into view seemed set fair for years to come in Punjab. But the national victory of the PTI has pulled the rug from beneath the PML-N, which is now accepting reality and fielding Hamza Shehbaz as the leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly. The decision was ratified at a meeting of the party Central Executive Committee in the last week, and the baton is thus passed to the next generation — although nomination is no guarantee of finality that Hamza will get the post.

Despite all the huffing and puffing it was the numbers that cold watered the PML-N ambition in the end. The party is in no position to get its nominations for speaker, deputy speaker or chief minister elected as it is not going to get more than 129-135 votes. The PTI is in a comfortable position to take all three.

For the PML-N, this has been a moment of truth unlike any other and for the senior Sharif brothers a recognition that their time in the limelight and on the seats of power is over. To be sure they are going to wield power and influence for years to come but it will inevitably wane and the party that was theirs by right, possession being nine points of the law, will itself have to change if it is to survive. Unsubstantiated allegations of vote rigging aside the electorate as a whole decided it was time for a change and took what amounts to a considerable risk. Better luck next time the PML-N — and take a close look at the PTI playbook. You may learn something.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2018.

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