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Friday March 29, 2024

Imran vs Shahbaz

By Mazhar Abbas
April 30, 2018

After Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s show of strength in Pakistan Muslim League’s stronghold Lahore, the equation now is simple, the battle ground of Election- 2018, will be Punjab, and that too between two powerful political leaders in their own right, Shahbaz Sharif and Imran Khan while the other parties and leaders could play the role of spoiler.

Imran Khan in the last 10 years in particular has emerged as one of the strongest challengers for the Sharifs, particularly after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and PPP’s debacle in Punjab.

In 2013, his performance was not bad as compared to 2008, but still short of his own expectations good enough to shake the PML-N. This time he is going in the election with an additional advantage of getting one Sharif ie Nawaz Sharif ousted and now intends to oust other, Shahbaz Sharif, whom he considers a good challenger.

This will be an interesting contest between the ‘change and continuity’, between performance in Punjab and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, between tested and not tested.

It will also be a contest between the two leaders who perhaps feel that this is their last and perhaps the best chance to become the prime minister of Pakistan.

This will be a contest between the two leaders who despite some conflicting issues have always stressed on the performance of their respective governments. Both, are aggressive and hard working and keep close eye on respective government, one as a chief minister of Punjab while other as the head of the party, which is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

This certainly is a positive sign if parties and leaders contest or compete against each other on the basis of their performance. For instance, if Imran claims that his KP government under Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had brought drastic reforms in police, health and education sectors, empowered local government and take credit of ‘billion trees’, giving right to information, his rival, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif highlights his performance on development in the field of roads and transport on projects like Motorway and Metro, reduced loadshedding through investment in energy sector, improvement in law and order etc.

As far as the issue of ‘accountability’ is concerned both have failed in setting up an Independent Provincial Accountability Commission, but Imran could claim that he had taken disciplinary action against 20 of his own MPAs, who he alleged had taken money, while Shahbaz failed in doing the same against those who voted for PTI’s Ch Sarwar in the Senate polls.

The PML-N has also taken credit of operation against terrorism in the country including in Karachi, Fata and also in Punjab, while Imran takes credit that not a single incident of ‘extra judicial killing’, had taken place in KP, while police had remained completely depoliticised.

While both KP and Punjab have made progress in ‘Right to Information Act’, unlike Sindh and Balochistan, they failed in constituting Public Safety Commission.

Like in any democracy, the government of the day has some disadvantages and if the challenger is someone not tested yet, he is often seen as an ‘alternate’. This gives a slight advantage to Imran over Shahbaz.

At the same time if the people of Punjab or its voters feel satisfied with the performance of Shahbaz and he remains in the contest and party also remains intact, the PTI and Imran will struggle as happened in 2013.

But unlike in 2013, Imran is going into these elections after getting the most important wicket of his arch rival, Nawaz Sharif and his closest aide, Kh Asif, both been disqualified for life. While Shahbaz Sharif and the PML-N already feared that they may not get ‘level playing field’, Imran Khan sees tsunami in 2018 against Sharifs in Punjab, but on Saturday, also acknowledged that PML-N is still having big names, many of whom he feels would switch over to the PTI and the PML-N would split.

Imran knows what happened in 2013, when due to organisational weakness, poor selection of candidates and lacking in election science of the polling day, he lost, which has now forced him to change his strategy.

He will be now giving more tickets to the ‘electables’, many of whom particularly from the PML-N, who had joined the PTI in post-Panama crisis and after disqualification of Nawaz Sharif while the PPP hardly stands a chance, some PPP leaders are now part of the PTI team.

Biggest setback for Imran Khan was the disqualification of his right hand and most trusted leader Jehangir Tareen and that is one of the reasons that Tareen is still part of party’s decision making and also in the parliamentary board, but, stepped down as an office-bearer. If the Supreme Court also disqualified his strongest aide Sh Rashid, it would be a huge political loss to Imran.

Imran himself had been given a ‘clean chit’ by the court and declared as ‘Sadiq and Ameen, while Shahbaz still has to come out clean in Model Town case and in some other inquiries pending before the NAB. Shahbaz carries far more ‘excessive baggage’, than Imran.

His leader, elder brother and the force behind the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif not only been disqualified for life but also facing trial in the NAB court along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Capt Safdar.

Free and fair election in a level playing field can make the contest between Imran Khan and Shahbaz Sharif, between the PTI and the PML-N, and election-2018 and battle for Punjab, more exciting and close than in 2013.

Unlike in the past, Sharifs, for the first time will be going into elections against all odds. History is not on their side as no party since 1970, had won any election for two consecutive terms and formed the government at the centre. Interestingly, it also stands for KP, as well. It will be interesting to watch who will give a surprise and who will be surprised.

The writer is the senior columnist and analyst of Geo, The News and Jang

Twitter: @MazharAbbasGEO