Daily Times

On October 11, 2015 in the by-election held in NA-122, Lahore, the challenger was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) of Imran Khan. On the latter’s behalf and place, Aleem Khan was the candidate contesting the election. The nature of the challenge was this: the PTI claimed that the electoral constituency of NA-122 actually belonged to the PTI but its opponent, the PML-N of Nawaz Sharif, stole the mandate of the voters of the constituency by rigging the election in the general elections of 2013, when Ayaz Sadiq of the PML-N defeated Imran Khan. Ayaz Sadiq, who had to resign from the position of member and speaker of the National Assembly (NA), was contesting the election once again after the election tribunal had declared the general election won by him null and void. The election has aired four main messages.

First, voters can be wooed by resorting to hurling a volley of vitriolic allegations at one’s political opponents. The PTI has specialised in this department. One of the reasons for doing so is the way the allegations, even if unfounded, are found potent enough to pull the crowd to electoral rallies. This technique was used to pull the crowd to the dharna (sit-in) staged last year to claim that the PTI’s electoral mandate had been stolen by the ruling party, the PML-N. During the by-election campaign, the accusation spree of the PTI kept the government of the PML-N as a political party and the election commission on the back foot. None of them could dare take a step that would annoy the PTI, even if the step were legal. However, the electoral result has proved that the blames laid by the PTI were baseless and the dharna was a farce to malign the sitting government in the eyes of both the electorate and the world. The election result has also proved that, in the past, the PTI deliberately misinterpreted electoral mismanagement as electoral fraud or rigging to justify its loss and to demean the victory of the PML-N. Nevertheless, the latter has emerged victorious to validate the authenticity of the elections of 2013. Ayaz Sadiq has defeated Aleem Khan.

Second, the construction of a frame of reference is important to entice voters. The PML-N relied on its past performance as a frame of reference to convince voters of the constituency. On the other hand, the PTI played with the sentiments of the voters by using the word ‘change’ as a frame of reference. The word change came to Pakistan as an electoral slogan after it was used by Barack Obama to contest elections in the US in 2008. Afterward, Imran Khan embraced the word to construct a frame of reference for voters in Pakistan.

During the lawyers’ movement, Imran Khan used to make brief appearances on the Mall, Lahore and, from atop a truck, would use the word change. At that time, he could not convince the lawyers of the significance of his sloganeering. The lawyers were expecting more from mainstream political parties such as the PML-N to come to their rescue than the PTI to bring change for them. However, it seems that this word has served the PTI a lot afterwards during election campaigns when the implications of this word are understood easily. Nevertheless, the word change has failed to introduce middle class leadership into the upper rank of the PTI to contest national elections. To contest a seat, the PTI itself is in search of candidates who have election winning worth and not those who are new to the domain of public popularity. The word change is used more to entice voters to vote for the PTI than to manifest a change in the leadership choice of the PTI. Members of the PTI have yet to make their party accountable on this double-speak.

Third, the electoral void is supposed to be filled. In Lahore, an electoral gap appeared owing to the relevant absence of a mainstream national political party such as the PPP to challenge the PML-N. The gap has been bridged by the PTI. In a way, it is less the strength of the PTI to fill the gap than the urge of the voters to have a party that could challenge the imposing political order established by the PML-N. The reason is not that the PML-N is underperforming in Lahore but is that voters are fond of gatherings and congregations. About a dozen political parties that pledged their support to the PTI, thanks to the untiring efforts of Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar, the former governor of Punjab, offered a big crowd to the PTI. However, despite this huge multiparty support, the PTI — the challenger — could not touch the mark of 84,000 votes, which were garnered by the party in NA-122 in the general elections of 2013. On the other hand, the PML-N still suffered the by-election lethargy of voters who did not turn up overwhelmingly to vote by assuming that the PML-N would win the election anyway.

Fourth, money matters in elections. The initiative was taken by the PTI to invest heavily in NA-122 in its election campaign despite spending restrictions imposed by the election commission. The PML-N followed suit. Aleem Khan was already known for spending extravagantly during election campaigns even at the level of intra-party elections. The PTI cashed in on this ability of his and, despite the report of Justice Wajihuddin against Aleem Khan, allowed him to contest the election. With that, the room for a middle class (moderate earning) member of society to contest elections on the platform of the PTI is closed. Nevertheless, despite spending a lot of money, in addition to the money spent by Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar, Aleem Khan has not proved himself a candidate who can win a national election. He has lost the opportunity to become a winning candidate of the PTI in the future.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com