Daily Times

Competing from his home seat of NA-149 in Multan as an independent candidate, the former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) President Javed Hashmi lost in Friday’s by-election by just over 10,000 votes, securing 47,500 votes to independent candidate Amir Dogar’s 57,972. Given the events that led to the by-election, including Hashmi’s revelations about PTI Chairman Imran Khan and his subsequent resignation from the National Assembly (NA) and the party, the contest was widely seen as a litmus test of the PTI’s popularity. While some are calling the result a vindication of the PTI’s strategy and talking heads have labelled it the end of Hashmi’s political career, veteran politicians know that one election does not make or break a politician. Far from proving that the electoral landscape is changing, the result was predictable and was much closer than might otherwise have been expected. Former Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah’s predictions for example turned out to be almost presciently accurate. Last week he noted that Hashmi would lose by 10,000 votes because the by-election would be heavily influenced by local factors and the anger of local PML-N cadres towards Hashmi for leaving the party in 2011 would not be assuaged by his resignation from the PTI or by the PML-N’s decision to not field a candidate against him. Hashmi’s resignation was welcomed by the ruling party but he was not directly supported by it in the election either. Aside from this, several other factors played into his loss.

In 2008 Hashmi won this same seat for the PML-N against Amir Dogar’s father, longstanding PPP Senator Salahuddin Dogar, and in 2013 bagged 45 percent of the vote to Amir Dogar’s 11 percent in an election with a record 56 percent voter turnout. He garnered over 85,000 votes as a PTI candidate to Dogar’s 20,000. Dogar is a former PPP stalwart but like many among the party’s Punjab cadre, he was alienated by Asif Zardari’s virtual abandonment of Punjab and was keen to have a strong party machine behind him, which allowed the PTI to woo him. The PPP’s Javed Siddiqui garnered only 6,000 votes, indicating how far support for the party in the area was dependent on Dogar’s candidacy. Dogar comes with a small but not insignificant vote bank, but even combined with the PTI’s wholesale support, this might not have been enough except for the low turnout in the by-election. Compared to 56 percent last year, the by-election brought just 25 percent of the electorate out to vote and with numbers substantially reduced, Dogar’s supporters played a crucial role in seeing him over the finish line. Hashmi was also left with very little time to campaign after his resignation and was in ill health for most of that time, preventing him from running an effective campaign or developing a comprehensive independent platform. In fact the incumbency factor weighed heavily against Hashmi, since he was competing against the same party machine that he helped develop in the run-up to the 2013 elections. The PTI is still in campaign mode and they effectively disrupted Hashmi’s campaign while heavyweights from Multan like Shah Mehmood Qureshi actively campaigned for Dogar. Voter fatigue may also have contributed to the low turnout, which worked in Dogar’s favour. Despite these factors, Hashmi put up a strong show, though it appears he was prepared for a defeat and gracefully congratulated Dogar when the results became official.

Dogar is now poised to join the PTI. However, many question what will become of him in the party. The PTI parliamentarians are supposed to have resigned and hence Imran Khan’s decision to back Dogar came as a surprise. Will Dogar now resign his seat right after winning it? Is the nation in for a never-ending series of by-elections? The PTI’s victory is welcome if the party decides to re-enter parliament, but the party must make its position clear. Ironically, Javed Hashmi remains the only person elected on a PTI ticket to have actually resigned. His loss is more a vindication of his principled stance than of the PTI’s popularity, which will be tested in the days to come. *