THE recent by-polls for 10 seats provide a useful basis for analysis at a time when everyone is talking about general elections. The PML-N has made gains. The PPP’s tally includes the two NA seats it retained in Punjab and two PA seats in Sindh. However, it lost one PA and NA seat to the PML-N, although it won the important NA-148 in Multan from where the prime minister’s son Ali Musa Gilani was the fourth member of the family to be returned to the current assemblies. His success was expected but it was being debated whether he could get more votes than the then PPP candidate — Shah Mehmood Qureshi — who had won the seat in the 2008 general election. As a Gilani scion out to replace a Qureshi who had changed loyalties, Mr Gilani would have left the task half done had he not outscored Mr Qureshi by 10,000 votes.

The turnout was generally good. This was due to the approaching general poll, the presence of two strong political camps with power in their hands and in part also because these were mostly rural constituencies where the candidates find it easier to draw the voters out. Many of these votes were necessitated by the switchover by MPs to the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf, and it was only logical that the parties which are already a part of the assemblies projected this as proof of the PTI’s irrelevance. Imran Khan’s case may have been strengthened by the horrifying slapping and firing that accompanied the by-elections, the media’s own quest for change of political culture being a huge factor favouring Mr Khan. Yet the PTI would have preferred the voters to stay home as an endorsement of its views of the existing assemblies as being hopeless and in need of being speedily replaced. In reality, there is little to suggest that the system is under threat. The PTI committed itself to the same brand of politics when at long last it launched its search for ‘winnable’ candidates. It should realise that there are a few ‘winnables’ out there already flexing their muscle.