PML(N) supremo is returning today, bar any sudden hiccup, today, Saturday, after his second exile this century. It is almost repetitive, for when he returned from exile in 2007, it was to enter an election campaign. However, this time, he is again to enter an election campaign, which is perhaps even closer. While there is every indication that he will once again become Prime Minister, not least the facilitation he is getting in the shape of the transitory bails in his various cases, there is no guarantee, not just because the results of an election are uncertain but because he faces the same challenges as when he left.
A major difficulty is the relationship he is to have with the establishment. It has tried exile on him twice, as well as imprisonment, first for hijacking, and then for corruption. He has blown hot and cold on future relations, promising legal action first and then withdrawing into saying that first he would tackle the economy. That is something about which he has been low on specifics, and the PML(N)’s recent performance in government did not instil confidence. His insistence on making Senator Ishaq Dar the Shehbaz government’s Finance Minister is too well known for him to avoid the blame for Senator Dar’s lacklustre performance, and it does seem that he will have to campaign as an incumbent, but without any of the advantages incumbency is supposed to bring. The campaign will not be made difficult only by the lack of a narrative, but also by the disarray the party is in. Never a monolith or a paragon of discipline at the best of times, it does not seem able to do what it is supposed to do so well, which is to contest an election.He has to paper over the rifts within the party between the supporters of his brother Shehbaz and his daughter Maryam.
All of this has as a background Mian Nawaz’s legal troubles. He is returning to the country as a convict who has overstayed his bail, and has only got very limited bail. How far this is allowed to go will depend on how far he is allowed to go, and that will in turn depend on the attitude he takes. If he tries to use the campaign to turn the spotlight onto the establisment, he may find that those very cases are used as a means to restrain him.
