NAUSHAD Shah’s take on the by-poll in the Multan city constituency of NA-149 contrasts with the noise the contest has generated in national politics and the media. Only days after his city held one of the largest public meetings in its history and amid all the colours flying in the area as it prepares to vote on Thursday, Shah, a 60-year-old Baghbanpura resident, is not happy. The way the ‘main contesting’ parties are conducting themselves has depressed him.

“What kind of politics is this?” he asks. “Neither the PML-N nor the PTI has its men in the contest: the PML-N is backing Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who ditched it not too long ago to become PTI president. The PTI is supporting PPP turncoat Malik Amir Dogar. Where are the parties?”

If the turnout on Oct 16 is on the lower side, one factor to blame would be the quick shifts in loyalty by the candidates. “One day a politician is in one party, the next day he is in another one. We’re not the slaves of these parties and politicians,” remarks Shah who would rather stay at home than waste his time standing in a queue outside a polling booth on Thursday.

Malik Amir Dogar

Others are similarly confused, and thinking about not voting. “It is dirty politics, political opportunism,” says a lawyer sympathetic to the PML-N. He does not want to be named. “This is a contest between two parties so determined to save face and so afraid of losing it that they are half hiding it before the contest.”

Sarwar Bari, national coordinator for the Pattan Development Organisation and former head of the Free and Fair Election Network, agrees that the voters are disenchanted by the gimmickry of major parties. “I see a very low turnout,” he says.

The only factor that could push voter turnout up to 25 to 30 per cent is mobilisation of the PTI youth. “I think the younger voters from the constituency who are with the PTI will get out of their homes, making the turnout look a little respectable,” says Bari.

So far the only major political activity organised in the city in the run-up to the by-poll has been the PTI public meeting last Sunday during which its vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi urged the party to vote for Dogar.

The local election scene is bereft of debate on Multan-specific issues, bar the rhetoric about the neglect suffered by the Seraiki areas.

A drive through the constituency confirms Bari’s concerns regarding the violation of the election code of conduct and campaign finance restrictions by candidates supported or fielded by the three largest parties.

“The Election Commission appears helpless, unable to get its own code implemented as candidates violate it with impunity and ministers use state resources for their choice candidate,” the development activist notes.

More worrisome is the fact that no contestant has raised his voice for the mitigation of the sufferings of the residents of the constituency. No one has raised the issues — high levels of arsenic in drinking water, poor sewerage, etc — that are important to the people; the by-poll may be crucial for the contesting parties and candidates but apparently not for the city of Multan or its residents.

Javed Hashmi clinched this national assembly seat in the last elections for the PTI, obtaining 83,640 votes against 73,798 polled by the PML-N’s Sheikh Tariq Rashid. Amir Dogar had polled 20,719 votes for the PPP and Liaqat Baloch 3,802 for the Jamaat-i-Islami.

That was a fight when two of the three politically prominent Makhdooms of Multan — Shah Mahmood and Javed Hashmi — were found in one camp (PTI), whereas the third, Yousuf Raza Gilani, struggled along, fighting serious allegations against his party, the PPP.

Many in the constituency believe that Hashmi, who is expected to get all the usual help a favourite is provided by the government, would have been more hard-pressed in the presence of a PTI that had a clearer policy. A journalist who’s observed a few elections in Multan points out: “The PTI says it won’t field a candidate and then it backs an independent candidate. The PTI is fighting the election but at the same time is resigning from the assemblies. The question being asked — by PML-N supporters and others — is: what future does Amir Dogar have even if he wins the seat?”

The rivals’ emphasis on individuals is leading one old journalism student who later became the prime minster of Pakistan to focus on the party and volunteer to campaign at the grass roots. Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is keen to remind everyone the ‘non-party’ polls indulged in by the PTI and PML-N is a throwback to the non-party election held three decades ago under Ziaul Haq, that provided Hashmi, Qureshi and Gilani himself with the foundation to work and be recognised as a force in and from Multan.

The Oct 16 poll aside, it may just be the start of a new round in the three-way fight. With Javed Hashmi’s informal ‘return’ to the PML-N, each party has a Makhdoom just as each of the Makhdooms has a party to himself.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2014