Imran’s win

The humiliating defeat faced by the PML-N in Sunday’s by-polls in Punjab has also made one thing very clear: Imran Khan’s narrative has many takers and, from the foreign conspiracy narrative to the ‘lotas’ slogans, the PTI has completely won the narrative war. The Punjab voter has also categorically told the PML-N that it had made a fatal mistake by giving up its politics of resistance – as manifested by Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz – in favour of compromising on intra-parliamentary wheeling and dealing. That should be lesson one for the PDM government, in particular the PML-N: a potent narrative wins. And that is what Imran Khan and his PTI presented to the people. Some analysts also see this as Punjab opting for an anti-establishment vote. Lesson two: don’t take the voter for granted. If the people were supporting Mian Nawaz Sharif’s narrative of ‘vote ko izzat do’ they were evidently invested far more in the power of the vote. Suddenly presenting them with a haphazard coalition, asking them to vote for PTI dissidents, and rolling back the narrative of resistance has cost the PML-N its main stronghold of Punjab, something so unthinkable for most analysts that even a day before the Punjab by-polls there was quiet confidence among electoral pundits that Hamza had the votes in bag even if with some difficulty. Lesson three: making political decisions out of fear is never a good idea. The PTI had left an economy in tatters, the brunt of which has been faced by the current government, which has had to take the unfortunate decisions of crippling price hikes for the necessary IMF programme. But the PDM and PPP had fears of a new appointment in November spelling trouble for them and so decided to go ahead with an ill-planned idea. That has royally backfired

By most observers, the by-polls were held fairly and the Election Commission of Pakistan seems to have pulled off a largely peaceful, well-managed election that stayed away from rigging and institutional interference. Imran Khan, though, thinks otherwise: in a televised victory speech the former prime minister repeated his allegations regarding the ECP’s ‘bias’, the CEC’s ‘dishonesty’, and said that attempts were made by the ECP to get the PML-N to win. Asking the CEC to resign, Imran has – expectedly – asked for early general elections.

Back in the PML-N camp, there is need for a lot of introspection: why did they go for the vote of no-confidence and not let Imran complete his term? What were they afraid of? If the PTI had completed its term, and not delivered, the PML-N could have won Punjab given its rising popularity before the vote of no-confidence. Just three months into this government and they have lost the province where they were the biggest political party. The PML-N also needs to question if a father-son duo was something they should have gone for instead of giving these two important positions to other party stalwarts. Times have changed as has the Pakistani voter; there are more young voters and most of them see Imran as an anti-status quo hero. But most of all the PDM-PPP combine needs to decide: do they want to continue at the centre with a weak coalition government? Today’s PDM-PPP meeting should be able to give a clearer idea on which way the coalition is headed now.