The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid will go into the latest elections as a ‘moth-eaten’ version of the King’s party that it was on the eve of the 2008 elections.

But there are few chances that it will emerge afterwards at all except as the latest version of the PML-Junejo or the Millat Party.

Both parties were formed by politicians at the height of power as the military’s protégé but turned into one-man or one-family shows once they had outlived their ‘usefulness’.

That the PML-Q is headed for a similar fate was evident when the party recently released its election manifesto — the party head Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was flanked by Senators Mushahid Hussain and S.M. Zafar, both politicians who have no constituency to call their own.

Those the Chaudhries had pampered since they forged an alliance with the Pakistan Peoples Party in 2011 had already deserted the (sinking) ship — Waqas Akram who was a state minister jumped over to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz; Faisal Saleh Hayat, who served as federal minister of housing and works, is going to contest the 2013 election as an independent candidate and Sardar Bahadur Ahmed Khan Sihar, who was given the portfolio of defence production, has joined the PPP.

This death of the party had been foretold back in 2008. That it survived for the next five years is due more to the stubbornness of the PML-N than to the brilliance of the Chaudhries.

The Sharifs’ refusal to accept the Chaudhries and the PML-Q in the aftermath of the 2008 election forced the party to continue existing independently as its members strayed away in groups and individually. The unification bloc in the Punjab Assembly or the like-minded faction are cases in point.

But the party was provided a second lease of life when the PPP allied with it and offered Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi the slot of deputy prime minister to shore up PPP numbers in parliament.

In those heady days, it seemed that the party stalwarts had deluded themselves into believing that there is a context in which they can play a role as a ‘moderate alternative’. Their warm welcome for Tahirul Qadri and alliance with other Barelvi parties indicated this.

As the drama of the January long march ended in Islamabad, PML-Q members were found telling people that a moderate alliance of Barelvi parties, the PPP and the PML-Q would find favour with the people — and perhaps beyond.

But the delusions and the artificial life support came to an end when the government went home and PML-Q politicians hitched themselves to better placed parties.

Apart from the examples mentioned earlier there is also that of the former nazim of Attock.

Major Tahir Sadiq, a relative of the Chaudhries, was once a famed example of how the local engineering had provided retired Gen Pervez Musharraf and the PML-Q with its grass-roots strength (though it never really delivered much in 2008). But the strong man of Attock was also a good example of the unhappiness of local politicians and workers with the Q-PPP alliance.

This is why Major Tahir has preferred to set off on a solo flight rather than contest the elections in an alliance with the PPP.

He knows as do others that while the PML-Q has few chances of winning when the Punjab tide has turned the PML-N way, it is even more fatal to contest as PPP allies.

Undeterred, the Chaudhries have feigned hope and awarded tickets for 2013. Mainly this is because constituency politicians cannot afford to stay out of the parliament however sidelined they may be. Why else would Farooq Ahmed Leghari return to the lower house after having served as the president of the country?

So even when the PPP welcomed PML-Q members to its fold, the desperately-seeking-political-survival Chaudhries protested this weakly but clung on to the unnatural alliance.

As the PML-Q heads down the path of political obscurity, there is little else these two can do.