Dynastic Pride Dented

Ishtiaq Ahmed

London: The poor showing of PML-N and PPP being witnessed represents an humongous failure of the dynastic leadership of these two established political stalwarts in Pakistan’s political landscape.

The initial results reflect that their efforts to discredit and marginalise Imran Khan’s PTI have not worked effectively. The initial unofficial results are giving the PTI-backed independent candidates a clear lead in many of the seats.

As many as 266 seats are being contested, with 70 reserved for women and minorities. For a simple majority, 133 seats are required to form the government. In the contested seats, Imran Khan‘s affiliates are showing strongly.

Strong showing of PTI-backed independent candidates is against what many of the observers had predicted.

Although on-the-ground support for Imran Khan had been acknowledged by many, given the many obstacles placed in the way of PTI campaign in the run-up to Election Day, which included the imprisonment and disqualification of IK and other PTI leaders being put behind bars, many felt that PTI support may be prevented or discouraged from translating into votes at the ballot box.

The PTI popularity not only seems to have held but actually translated into votes to give the PTI an upper hand, thus defying the uneven political landscape for them.

The attempts to constrain PTI to provide a pathway for PML-N and PPP seem to have backfired, thus providing additional motivation for the IK supporters to go out and vote.

Read More:https://thepenpk.com/election-day-voters-dilemma/

If the support for the PTI-backed independents is confirmed in the final outcome, it will clearly show that the hold of the dynastic politics of PML-N and PPP has been considerably loosened. This could be a good omen for the democracy in Pakistan.

All the indicators thus far point to further political instability in Pakistan, which needs some form of political stability. With the poor showing of the PPP and PML-N against PTI-backed independents, it is uncertain what the political equation may look like.

The most notable observation is that in order to overcome many of the campaigning constraints, PTI effectively employed the use of social media technology considering that many people have access to mobile technology and the PTI supporters being relatively younger and more social media savvy.

We do expect the political landscape of the country to be further consumed by incriminations and legal wrangles.

Given the humongous challenges Pakistan is experiencing at home and across borders, it quickly needs to return to some form of political normalisation.

Although the establishment and the interested foreign parties must be watching with some anxiety the unfolding of results at the ballot box.

These unexpected early showings confirm the strong presence of PTI support, which is an apparent message to state actors to think in reverse gear.

The author is a British citizen of Pakistani origin with a keen interest in Pakistani and international affairs.

The article is the writer’s opinion, it may or may not adhere to the organization’s editorial policy