LAHORE: The by-polls scheduled for Thursday are important for major political parties not only because 16 national and 26 provincial seats will be up for grabs across the country, but also because the results will confirm or weaken the voting patterns and trends produced by the May election.

The by-polls are being organised less than three-and-a-half months after the general election whose credibility has been questioned by many parties, especially by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

The PTI, which has already requested the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Supreme Court to order ‘forensic’ verification of the ballots cast in the four national seats in Punjab, including one in Lahore, plans to release its white paper a day before polling for the by-elections to press with its rigging charges.

The PTI, which had predicted a rout of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its own rise as the single largest party to the National Assembly in the May election, says it has learnt its lessons and would not let anyone cheat it again. “…the PTI will win the next election even in the presence of ‘biased referees’,” Imran, who is facing contempt of court charges in the Supreme Court, told an election gathering last week in Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The by-elections will show if the PTI, which has to deal with factional fighting within, can maintain the momentum it was able to create before the general election. Hence, the results of the three national seats — NA-1 in Peshawar, NA-48 in Islamabad and NA-71 in Mianwali — are being billed by analysts to be most important for the future of the party, and by that implication, for the course of Pakistani politics from here.

All these three seats were won by the PTI: two, NA-1 and NA-71, by Imran Khan and one, NA-48, by Makhdoom Javed Hashmi.

For the PML-N, the by-polls are crucial because the success or failure of its campaign to win the seats it has vacated or reclaim a few more from the rival PTI to add to its tally would be considered a vote of trust or no-confidence by the people, at least in its stronghold of Punjab, in the performance of its two-and-a-half-month-old governments in Islamabad and Lahore.Some analysts argue the PML-N will be able to maintain its winning streak in Punjab because its presence promises the voters relative safety from terrorism that has claimed hundreds of lives in the rest of the country. This is despite wide criticism of its decisions to increase indirect taxes and electricity prices, which has adversely affected the middle classes.

Also, PML-N could win over voters with its calls which seek greater support in its formative months. The argument of fully empowering a government with popular votes, in comparison to the weak coalition government which was in power until May, could tip the balance in the PML-N’s favour.

The question confronting the Pakistan People’s Party, which was routed in Punjab, and the Awami National Party (ANP), which lost Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the PTI, is: are they yet ready to make a comeback? And the dilemma facing Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is not much very different: is the JUI-F equal to the challenge it has thrown to the PTI in the province?

Key contests

KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA: All eyes are on NA-1 (Peshawar) with the ANP’s Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, who lost it to Imran Khan by a margin of 66,000 votes, campaigning to reclaim it from the PTI. The PTI’s Gul Badshah is not only facing the challenge thrown by the ANP but also by disgruntled activist Samad Mursaleen of his own party. Bilour’s high hopes may appear to some to be unrealistic given the margin of his defeat in May, but politics changes fast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The three-way competition for D.I. Khan seat (NA-25) had generated a lot of interest in the last election and it is expected to repeat history on Thursday as well. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who defeated the PTI’s Dawar Khan Kundi and the PPP’s Faisal Kareem Kundi in May, has put up his son Asad Mahmood from here. The main rivals remain the same. While PPP is fighting for it to revive its fortunes in the area, the PTI is contesting to take revenge from the JUI-F leader for running down and challenging Imran Khan.

PUNJAB: In Punjab, the most closely-watched contest will take place in Mianwali between the PML-N’s Obaidullah Shadikhel and the PTI’s Malik Waheed Khan. Shadikhel, who lost to Imran Khan in the May election, is said to have gained ground over his rival who is fighting to retain the seat won by his party chief in the general election. Observers in Mianwali say the last-minute disqualification of Ayla Malik over a fake degree could prove to be a major setback for the PTI’s campaign, which had to replace her with a lesser known candidate. Also, the factional fight in the city party ranks is believed to have weakened the PTI.

In NA-64 (Sargodha), the voters are faced with the option of choosing between PML-N’s Sardar Mohammad Shafqat Hayat Khan and its renegade leader, Javed Hasnain Shah, who had won the seat in 2008 but was forced to resign it because of a fake degree. Shah is promising his voters to present the seat to his old party on a platter after winning it to woo them away from his PML-N rival.

The factional fighting in the party had forced the PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to contest this seat for his party in May. If that was an attempt to remove the rift the factionalism seems to have deepened due to the award of the ticket to Shafqat. The PTI’s Malik Nazir Ahmed Sobhi, observers say, will also get a good chunk of votes, but maybe not large enough to trouble the two front-runners.

It will be a two-way contest between PTI’s Shokat Ali Bhatti, son of former member of the national assembly and a PML-Q leader, Mehdi Hasan Bhatti, and the PML’s Mian Shahid Hussain Khan Bhatti for NA-103 in Hafizabad. The seat was claimed by Mehdi Hasan Bhatti’s brother Liaquat Bhatti in May on a PML-Q ticket but the result was cancelled because of charge of rigging. The decision of Mehdi Bhatti to join and field his son for the by-polls on a PTI ticket may pay off, according to the people who know the area’s politics.

Although the PML-N’s Shazia Mubashir is being billed to retain the national seat (NA-129) vacated by Shahbaz Sharif, it will be a test case the PTI to prove that it was “snatched” from its candidate Mansha Sindhu in the last election. Also, it will afford the PTI to practically prove that the PML-N had “forcibly” taken away several “confirmed” seats in Punjab from it.

In NA-177 in Muzaffargarh PPP’s Ghulam Rabbani Khar is taking on Jamshed Dasti’s brother after losing it to Jamshaid in May. Things are said to have changed a lot in the constituency after Dasti vacated this seat for Javaid Dasti. He has lost support of various influential factions in the area, who are now said to be supporting either Khar or Saud Gormani, brother of Zeeshan Gormani who joined the PML-N after winning a provincial seat from the area as an independent candidate. The PML-N has left the seat “open” as it did not find a suitable candidate.Of the 15 Punjab Assembly seats being contested, PP-193 in Okara has acquired much significance because of the presence of Khurram Wattoo, son of Punjab PPP president Manzoor Wattoo, in the field. The elder Wattoo had lost two national seats from Okara in the May polls although one of them was said to be “confirmed”. Now the question is: Will he succeed in sending his son to the provincial assembly? There is hope, the PPP says.

Another interesting provincial assembly contest will take place in DG Khan where two sons of PML-N leader Zulfiqar Khosa will compete with each other from different political platforms. While Hissamuddin Khosa has been given ticket by the PML-N, his elder brother Saifuddin Khosa, who lost the National Assembly election in May, is pinning his hopes on the PPP’s support base in the area. Either way Khosas are billed to return to the provincial assembly.

SINDH: The contest on two seats in Sindh – NA-235 in Sanghar-Mirpurkhas and NA-237 in Thatta — is expected to be exciting and unpredictable. The Sanghar-Mirpurkhas seat was won by PML-Functional leader Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashdi, who had opted to retain NA-216 in Khairpur. The area has historically been a stronghold of the PML-F where the party’s little known candidates had been winning in the past with large margins against their traditional PPP rivals. However, the PPP’s Shazia Marri had put up a tough contest before losing it to the PML-F leader.

This time she is contesting against PML-F’s Khuda Bakhsh Dars, a former nazim of taluka Khipro.

The Thatta seat had returned the PPP’s Sadiq Memon to the assembly by a slim margin of some 2,700 votes in May. The seat was declared vacant when his petition in the court about his dual citizenship was not allowed. The PPP has now fielded his mother Shamsunnisa Memon to woo the large Memon vote base. She will have to defeat Riaz Hussain Shirazi, contesting as on a PML-N ticket. With Jam Gohram, who bagged over 20,000 votes as a PML-N candidate on a provincial assembly seat in Thatta in last election, on his side, Shirazi feels a slight edge over his rival, whose nomination is not liked certain PPP cadres from the constituency. However, for observers the contest merits no predictions.

BALOCHISTAN: Two arch political rivals, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and JUI-F, are once again facing each other off in Qila Abdullah-Chaman (NA-262) where Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s man, Abdul Qahar Wadan, has to struggle hard to retain electoral win of his party chief in the last election. In the last six elections Achakzai and JUI-F candidates have won the elections three times each from the constituency. The PkMAP has the advantage of the area being the home constituency of Achakzai while JUI is pinning hope on its strong following from here. The JUI-F will be going into the by-polls with Qari Muhammad Sher Ali, who lost to Achakzai in May, as its candidate.

ISLAMABAD: The burden of reclaiming the city seat of the federal (NA-48) is now on the shoulders of the PTI’s Asad Umar, who will be facing the PML-N’s Chaudhry Ashraf Gujjar. The PTI seems to be in a strong position because of the late decision of the PML-N leadership to finalise its candidate due to an internal rift within the party’s organisation in the capital city. Moreover, Ashraf Gujjar is not only a new comer in the election politics, he also does not enjoy the support of the hardcore and old party workers who are unhappy over the leadership’s decision of not awarding the ticket to former MNA from the same constituency, Anjum Aqeel Khan, who had lost it to Javed Hashmi in the general election. The PTI man also has the advantage of support coming from the Jamaat-i-Islami whose Mian Mohammad Aslam had bagged 25,048 votes.

(Additional reporting by Ismail Khan, Hasan Mansoor, Saleem Shahid & Amir Wasim)