After announcing that he would personally prepare the strategy for the next phase of local body elections in KP, Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken the responsibility to provide the PTI guidelines to fight Punjab elections also. This makes the PM vulnerable as he would be directly held responsible for any possible electoral disaster. While his meetings in Lahore would mount pressure on the PTI’s provincial leadership to pull its act together and on the bureaucracy to deliver, Mr Khan knows he possesses no Aladdin’s lamp to get the results of his choice. Is the announcement only meant to raise the sagging morale of the party’s leaders who are aware of the gravity of the challenge they face? KP was lost because of resentment among the masses over rising prices and unemployment. After contending for a long time that rising prices were not due to PTI’s policies but a worldwide phenomenon and that Pakistan was the least costly country in the region and finding few buyers for the explanations, Mr Khan has finally conceded that inflation is the biggest problem but has no urgent solution.
To allay the electorate’s anxieties, Mr Khan ordered speedy distribution of Sehat Cards in Punjab. People complaining of fast decreasing purchasing power and loss of jobs are not likely to be attracted by the promise of free treatment in a hospital.
The PTI faces a formidable challenge in Punjab where in the recent bye-elections the PML(N) won all the National and Provincial seats except one. The perception of the establishment having become neutral has made the PML(N) leadership smell blood and it is likely to go for the kill, using all the resources at its disposal. The provincial PTI on the other hand suffers from factionalism as indicated by CM Usman Buzdar’s cancellation of the Punjab Overseas Convention due to rivalry with Governor Muhammad Sarwar. The PTI’s allies, who wait for opportunities of the sort, are likely to put up new demands to strengthen their political position. With PTI still at a loss over how to get results of their liking in the largest province of the country, the situation has led many to wonder if Punjab local body elections would really be held in March as announced earlier.
