Ruling party’s struggles evident in K-P

Despite the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) firm belief of crushing their opposition, the recently concluded local government polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) infer another story - a dip in popularity.

With almost eight years in power in K-P, the pressure to deliver is mounting on the provincial government and the local government polls, in which the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) emerged as the largest party after winning a majority of the seats, point towards the PTI losing its ground in K-P and that too in the provincial capital, where a JUI-F candidate took the mayor slot, considered to be PTI’s stronghold.

The PTI, which holds the unique record of being the only political party to form two successive governments in K-P, a province known for not giving second chances to political parties, has been facing the heat for rising inflation, devaluation of currency, unemployment and more recently gas load shedding, throughout the country.

However, Dr Altaf Khan, former Chairman Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Peshawar, opined that dynastic politics and internal rifts were the reasons for the PTI’s fall in K-P. According to Altaf, the rifts became apparent when the ruling party lost the by-election at Nowshera PK-63 to the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), earlier this year.

Several of the PTI’s members of the provincial assembly, agree with Altaf’s opinion of internal pary rifts costing them the elections. “In my constituency our own [PTI’s] member of the national assembly, Noor Alam Khan, was openly supporting JUI-F’s candidate,” Deputy Speaker K-P Assembly, Mehmood Jan, alleged.

He also revealed to the Express Tribune that he was aware that another member of the party who also held a seat in the provincial assembly supported an independent candidate in the local government polls. A fiery, Jan, further alleged that those who got elected by PTI to national and provincial assemblies went against the party decision and sold their votes for money.

However, Shaukat Yousafzai, the Minister for Labour & Culture K-P, termed inflation as the major reason behind the PTI’s fall during local government elections. Dr Altaf, however, disagrees with this view. “Besides the price hikes, another reason for the losses is that the Prime Minister’s (PM) attention has diverted towards Punjab,” Altaf said. He equated this shift of PM Imran Khan’s focus from K-P to the country’s most populous province as leaving one’s children at home and letting them run the house.

The JUI-F’s K-P Ameer, Senator Maulana Ataur Rehman, jubilant about his party’s showing stated that the people had taken a wise decision. “Inflation, mismanagement, and incompetency are a few reasons of the PTI’s fall in K-P,” he said.

The senator, while talking to the Express Tribune, further alleged that the incompetent PTI would have gotten a worse drubbing had it not used government machinery to influence results of the local government polls.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2021.