Why a pre-poll alliance is a sine qua non to stop IK rise to power

If anti-Imran Khan camp wants to prevent a PTI victory it must turn advantage in first-past-the-post system

The recent vote of no-confidence against Imran Khan was primarily the outcome of alliance partners pulling the plug on the government as well as a rebellion within the PTI. The emergence of the PDM coalition government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has resulted in a recalibration of the political configuration in Pakistan from a disparate multi-party system to a division of the entire Pakistani electorate into two camps — pro-Imran Khan camp and the anti-Imran Khan camp. The former is represented by the faction of the PTI unrepresented in the rump National Assembly while the latter is a formation of a disarray of grand old political parties with historically antagonistic relations coming together by temporarily putting aside their difference with the sole objective of dislodging Imran Khan from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The leftover of the PTI is now the single largest party in Pakistan in terms of popular support base, but they do not represent the majority of the Pakistani electorate. The anti-Imran Khan camp is larger than the pro-Imran Khan camp, but it is still segmented into various political parties. According to a Gallup Pakistan survey, 57 per cent of the public opinion in Pakistan is in favour of Imran Khan’s removal while 43 per cent are angry with the dismissal of Imran Khan’s government. Even among respondents who were angry that Imran Khan is no longer the Prime Minister, only 2 per cent felt this way because they thought that this was because of a foreign conspiracy. This shows that only a very insignificant percentage of the anti-Imran Khan camp have bought the myth of the foreign conspiracy. It is also evident that the anti-Imran Khan camp is larger than the pro-Imran Khan camp. Many analysts in Pakistan have overestimated Imran Khan’s popularity based on large turnouts at PTI rallies across the country. There are two factors that must be taken into consideration when using the congregation size at political rallies as an indicator of potential electoral success. 1) Not all those who attend political rallies are supporters of the party. In a country like Pakistan where there are limited options for live entertainment many people attend rallies only to watch the free show and to enjoy the large public gatherings especially since Covid restrictions have been lifted. Many supporters of the anti-Imran Khan camp discreetly participate in PTI rallies only to derive sadistic pleasure watching a tormented Imran Khan crying out foul at the Umpire upon being shown the red card. 2) In a first-past-the-post voting format popular numerical support may not necessarily translate into parliamentary seats. Those people seen at political rallies often do not belong to the same constituency as it is a common practice for party cadre to travel from other areas of the country to attend rallies.

As mentioned earlier, PTI is now the single largest party in Pakistan in terms of popular support; however, they do not represent the vast majority of the Pakistani electorate. In the post-Zia-ul-Haq era, no one political party could ever claim to have more than 45 per cent of the popular support base at any point of time. In the post-Musharraf era this number drops to an upper estimate of around 35 to 40 per cent. In the 2018 general election, the PTI was polled only 31.82 per cent (16.9 million/ 53.1 million) of the popular vote. It can be observed that the PTI does not have any regional strongholds outside the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as their supporters are scattered mainly in north-west Punjab (i.e. the area from Jhelum to the Indus River), Lahore and Karachi.

In such an electorate structure the first-past-the-post voting system works in favour of the PTI as the anti-Imran Khan vote is divided among multiple political parties while PTI has the single largest support base despite not having the majority vote share. If one examines the 2018 general election results in detail then it can be seen that the PTI won most of their seats with less than 45 per cent of the popular vote. This applies to even Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which is perceived as the stronghold of the PTI. In order to observe this phenomenon one should look at some constituencies across Pakistan as examples. In NA-247 Karachi South-II, Dr Arif Alvi who later became President won only 42.05 per cent of the popular vote. TLP came in second position with 11.40 per cent votes while the remainder of the vote share was divided between parties such as MQM-P, MMA, PPP, PML-N and others. Another example from Karachi is NA-245 Karachi East-IV where PTI candidate Aamir Liaquat Hussain won the seat with only 33.96 per cent of the total votes. In NA-25 Nowshera-I, Pervez Khattak was elected with only 45.86 per cent of the popular vote.

If the anti-Imran Khan camp wants to prevent a PTI victory in the next general election then its main challenge is to turn the advantage that the PTI enjoys in the first-past-the-post voting system into the disadvantage of the PTI. This is now possible due to the bipolarisation of the Pakistani electorate into pro-Imran Khan and anti-Imran Khan camps. There is almost no middle ground left in Pakistani politics: it’s either you are with or against Imran Khan. The only way to deny Imran Khan an electoral victory is to avoid multi-corner contestations in all 272 electoral constituencies of the National Assembly. This can be only done by leaders of the PDM devising a seat adjustment formula whereby in all constituencies there will be only one anti-Imran Khan candidate directly against the PTI. It would be even better if the PDM were to register their alliance with the Election Commission of Pakistan in order to contest the next general election under a common symbol representing the anti-Imran Khan camp. This will enable the consolidation of the anti-Imran Khan vote bank under a single symbol, thus outnumbering the popular vote of the PTI. In order to achieve this goal the PML-N must have a large heart and allow other political parties, especially the PPP, some space to operate in the Punjab province. The PML-N must limit its political activities to a maximum of 115 out of 141 National Assembly constituencies in Punjab. At the same time, the PML-N must also close down its Sindh Chapter so that all 61 National Assembly seats in Sindh province can be shared between the PPP and MQM-P. A very important political player in Punjab and Karachi is TLP. The PDM must make whatever deal possible to win TLP’s support as it cannot risk letting the PTI enter into a pre-poll alliance with TLP. The TLP also faces the same problem of turning its popular support into parliamentary seats. This can be solved by the TLP leaders accepting a bipolar Pakistan whereby it has to choose to play its politics either in the pro or the anti-Imran Khan camp. Any form of dilution of the anti-Imran Khan vote bank will work in favour of the PTI. Therefore, a pre-poll national unity alliance of all anti-Imran Khan political parties is a sine qua non for denying Imran Khan an electoral victory.