PML-N eyeing revival in Sindh

With elections now two months away, political manoeuvring is the flavour of the month as political stakeholders scurry towards each other to form alliances and adjust seats so that they can be in power come February.

The most recent such alliance has been formed between the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) to counter the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Sindh, and more specifically the provincial capital, Karachi. This strategic alliance will also serve the broader interest of the PML-N in the centre, where the party is vying to form the federal government and will need allies to get one of the Sharif brothers in the Prime Minister’s office, once again. As far as Sindh and Karachi are concerned the PML-N needs a partner like the MQM because the last time the party won big in the province was in the 1997 general elections.

Back then, the PML-N won 9 National Assembly seats and 15 Sindh Assembly seats, from areas like Karachi, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Nawabshah (present day Shaheed Benazirabad), Khairpur, Badin, Tharparkar and Dadu. However, after the success of 1997 the PML-N did not manage to capitalise or expand its voter base in the province. For instance, in 2013, the year the party came into power in the centre, the party fielded several candidates from various districts of Sindh but only managed to win 2 seats from Karachi. And in the last general election, back in 2018, the party did not win any seats from the entire province.

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“The reason why the party has failed to build itself up in Sindh is because it has never taken its vote bank in the province seriously,” opined senior journalist and political analyst, Mazhar Abbas. When asked about the PML-N’s alliance with MQM to revive itself in Sindh, the senior journalist was of the view that the electoral partnership might not yield the desired results for the PML-N. “All the anti-PPP parties in Sindh, including the PML-N, only become active during the general elections and thus will not be able to expand their vote bank,” predicted Abbas.

However, Qurban Baloch, another senior analyst and journalist who has a close eye on Sindh’s politics, does feel that the PML-N might be able to carve out a few wins in the upcoming election. “If the PML-N forms a successful anti-PPP lobby with the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), and other nationalist parties then they do have a chance of a resurrection in the province,” said Baloch. “However, the PML-N along with its allies will have to take a clear stand in favour of Sindh on important issues like allocation of financial resources and distribution of water,” cautioned Baloch as an afterthought. Rehmatullah Barro, a former worker of the PML-N from Sukkur, does not feel that the party is cut out for Sindh or will heed to Baloch’s advice.

“The PML-N has never made any effort to organise the party in Sindh and even when it has won from here, it has done little to improve the lives of its voters,” informed Barro, further adding that the party’s indifferent attitude towards its voters in Sindh had led many to choose other political options. In light of Barro’s sentiments, the Express Tribune reached out to the PML-N’s recently appointed Sindh chapter President, Bashir Memon, to inquire about the party’s plans for the province but did not hear back from him.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2023.