Local adjustments continue despite no multiparty alliance

ISLAMABAD: Although no formal multiparty alliances have been knocked together to jointly contest the forthcoming local council elections, there have been ‘adjustments’ between some strange political bedfellows at the local level in certain areas.
For instance, there are reports of such developments in Gujranwala and Kasur districts indicating cooperation between the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on several seats.
The PPP’s main strategist in the local polls is Manzoor Wattoo, who is doing his best to get a substantial share for his party. He has earned acclaim from PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari for what the latter said the good work being done by him to enable the party to secure its lost ground in Punjab. There is no other PPP leader in the limelight as preparations for the local elections have been accelerated.
Although senior PTI leader Chaudhry Sarwar had agreed to form a grand anti-Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) alliance at Wattoo’s residence which included the PPP and some diminutive parties, his own organization strongly spurned any such coalition and announced that it would contest the local elections single-handed and particularly articulated its usual antipathy towards the PPP.
However, the “adjustments” made by it with the PPP in Kasur and Gujranwala districts and some other areas belie the PTI policy. Expediency is in full swing to gain maximum in the electoral exercise at any cost.
Since the local polls will be held on the party basis, all the candidates affiliated with different political forces would have to get their tickets on the official recommendations of their leaders. With this requirement in view, it can’t be stated that certain PTI candidates made adjustments with the PPP on their own. Whatever arrangements they have worked out has the backing and blessings of their party leadership.
The PTI’s track record shows that it is staunchly opposed to making electoral alliances and has always opted for a solo flight. The only option available for adjustments it has in Punjab is the PPP, which it continues to slam for being the looter and plunderer of the national wealth. But still it is breaking bread with the PPP.
The PPP’s top priority is to get something rather than nothing out of the local polls. It detests the repeat of the 2013 general elections when it was unprecedentedly decimated in Punjab. The subsequent by-elections exhibited no improvement in its performance and its fortunes have plummeted to the lowest ever level.
However, one striking phenomenon – hatred of the PML-N - is common between the PTI and PPP, and parties like the PML-Q also share it. All these parties are desperate to overshadow the PML-N in the local elections. The PML-Q’s main concern is the Gujrat district where it wants to bag all the senior local berths having the Chaudhrys’ nominees in the front seat.
On its part, the PML-N is not eager for an alliance with any party and is sure to win a predominant majority of the local positions in the Punjab. However, in certain areas, it is faced with a surfeit of its own hopefuls, whose jockeying for the top local spots is creating problems for it.
In most areas, the federal and provincial legislators of the PML-N have a complete sway in selecting the candidates for the local seats. However, it has also given rise to rifts and conflicts in different areas where these lawmakers hold clashing views.
In Lodhran, the PML-N is in a catch-22 situation. It has awarded its ticket for the by-election to the National Assembly constituency, NA-154, to Umair son of Siddique Baloch, who was disqualified by the Multan election tribunal on a petition filed by PTI’s loser Jehangir Tareen.
However, Rafiuddin Bokhari, who as the PML-N ticket holder was defeated in the 2013 elections in this area by bagging some 45,000 votes, is willing to extend his support to Umair only if he was promised the office of the chairman of the Lodhran district council. At the same time, member of the National Assembly Abdur Rehman Kanjo, son of deceased Siddique Khan Kanjo, who is another powerful figure of the area, wants the district council position for his nominee in exchange for his backing to Umair.
The PML-N is yet to work out an arrangement so that both Bokhari and Kanjo support Umair, making its candidate’s victory in the by-poll sure. If this happened, Tareen will have chances to carry the day on October 11.
As far as the local elections in the interior region of Sindh are concerned, the PPP is confident that it will triumph like before. Here, it is not keen to form an alliance with any political party. The PML-N did not have much interest in the province. However, some of its nominees will contest a few seats in different parts of Sindh.
In the urban centres like Karachi and Hyderabad, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), though cornered and beleaguered due to the Rangers’ operation, may prove its control once again as it did in the by-election for NA-246.