Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is a man with several options. And he is keeping a few of them open. One of the options is to hold the general elections in 2017, one year before the culmination of the PML-N’s tenure.

The premise before holding early elections is to take the opposition and other detractors by surprise. At the moment, none of the opposition parties are in a position to pose a serious electoral threat to the prime minister.

The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) failed to maintain his popularity graph, in the mid-term and local government elections. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that shrank to Sindh province in the last general elections is still struggling hard to make a comeback in Punjab. The remaining political parties do not matter.

Sources close to the prime minister toldDaily Timesthat the proposal of holding early elections has already been given a serious thought. The prime minister wanted to keep this option open. However, it would depend largely on the success or failure of the opposition to compel the prime minister to avail this option.

“Whenever I start delivering, there appear forces which pull me down,” complained the prime minister in a recent meeting with his close aides. Sources said the prime minister was furious over Panama leaks rant, being spread by the opposition parties. Without naming anyone, he told his aides that ‘whosoever’ was hatching conspiracies against him would not succeed this time.

The proposal of holding early elections would change the entire scenario. The PTI might not accept holding of early elections. However, the PPP might not lose the opportunity to reclaim its vote bank, snatched by the PTI in the previous elections. The decision, if made, would revitalize the PML-N and re-energize the workers who are merely clinching fists after every successful show by the PTI.

The prime minister has already tasked Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to repair damaged relations with the GHQ. The two have been successful to some extent and have managed to arrange a meeting between the prime minister and the army chief after a gap of almost one-and-a-half month.

Sources said the army chief wanted fair and transparent investigation into Panama leaks. With his recent actions to punish corruption military officers, the army chief made it loud and clear that there was no holy cow in Pakistan. He conveyed to the prime minister that military top command expected the prime minister to identify and penalize the black sheep among the political herd.

The army chief is retiring in November, one month before the retirement of the chief justice of Pakistan. The prime minister would feel much better and keep his focus to deal with his political adversaries.

Sources said amid growing civil-military tensions, the prime minister had reportedly held meetings with three senior military officers. The GHQ, sources said, took exception of such move and expressed its deep displeasure.

The move was seen as prime minister’s desperate attempt to portray that he was looking for the successor of Gen Sharif. The army chief has already refused to get extension unlike his two predecessors. Sources said the prime minister has diametrically rejected the proposal of an in-house change. He told his aides that he would not give in to the pressure, being put on him by the opposition parties and their backers. Rather, he made it clear that early elections would be called to shun anti-Sharifs politics.

The purpose of discarding the in-house change was to tell those PML-N senior leaders who were eager to become the prime minister, though for a short period of time.

The strategy the prime minister and his kitchen cabinet finalized is to politicize the issue of terms of reference of the proposed judicial commission to the maximum extent. They just want to buy as maximum time as possible.

What ‘others’ are thinking is a case in point. Recently, rumors were rife in Islamabad that some big decision was expected just after the federal budget, next month.