As President Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden prepare to climb the legal container in the United States, Pakistani politicians are converging on Gilgit-Baltistan to wage electoral war in their own battleground state.

The weather report says today Washington DC will experience a high of 21 Celsius and a low of 10 Celsius. Gilgit today will have a high of 15 Celsius and a low of 4 Celsius. In both cities however, the political temperature is nearing boiling point.

GB goes to the polls on November 15. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has been campaigning maniacally in the area for weeks. He is hungry for a win. Senior PPP officials say Bilawal has been eyeing GB since the 2018 elections and this is his third visit. By election day he would have visited every single constituency in GB. Party officials believe a victory here would provide wind for the PPP sails and help it gain momentum in Punjab. It would also signal a revival of sorts for the party’s fledging political fortunes.

Prime Minister Imran Khan visited GB a few days ago and delivered a scathing speech against his opponents. His ministers, including Ali Amin Gandapur, are campaigning vigorously and making significant alliances in a bid to win and form the government. They come armed with the advantage of federal power.

PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif is reaching Gilgit today. Some in her party believe she’s late to the GB party. But then she didn’t have much of a choice given the action-packed politicking happening from the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) platform. The PML-N may suffer from the incumbency factor in GB — and from the usual pre-poll games that invariably happen if you’re out of favour — but it has a strong electoral presence and is no pushover. Maryam may be flying in today but other key party leaders have been barnstorming the area for some time.

All bigwigs are in Gilgit. All are staying in the same hotel. Makes for an interesting venue. It is an important election at an important time for important stakeholders. Which is why, the whispers are disturbing.

Here’s the thing about whispers though: they are infuriatingly fleeting; or a harbinger of things best left unsaid. In politics, however, whispers run the risk of being weaponised.

GB is partial to the PPP, is what these whispers are saying. Or, in other words, the winds are being made to fill the PPP sails here. Made to? The whisperers say hush. It would be mighty convenient to important stakeholders if PPP is brought further into the big tent. This way PPP’s bonds with PDM could loosen a bit. Not break, but loosen.

Not true, say the PPP officials. They trash these whispers as motivated rumour-mongering aimed at creating fissures within the PDM. Yes Bilawal wants to win in GB, and yes he is giving it his best shot, party insiders say, but there is no extra wind being pumped into the party sails.

But these pesky whispers hang in the air like infectious droplets. There was some confusion in the list of speakers at PDM’s Quetta jalsa and according to one person on the stage that evening, Maulana Fazlur Rehman wanted the PPP to ensure that Bilawal Bhutto would make his speech. One eyewitness says the maulana looked and sounded slightly irritated. Was Bilawal not planning to speak? Was the maulana reading too much into this? PPP’s Raja Pervez Ashraf managed the situation and Bilawal ended up speaking via video link from GB.

Not true, insists a PPP insider. He says there was no confusion; that Bilawal was scheduled to speak; that he also tried to reach Quetta but flight schedules didn’t allow for a short visit; and that there was smooth coordination between maulana’s team and PPP organisers. So far, so good.

But now comes the deluge. From here till the end of the year is a blitzkrieg of intense political activity that has the potential to scorch this partisan landscape. The PML-N has planned workers’ conventions in Muzaffargarh, Rawalpindi and Swat in the next two weeks to mobilise its rank and file for the upcoming jalsas. GB polls take place on Nov 15, PDM’s Peshawar jalsa happens on Nov 22 followed by the Multan one on Nov 30. Then the big one is planned for Lahore on Dec 13 leading to the PPP-hosted final jalsa in Larkana on Dec 27. After this, if nothing has been settled, it’s the march to Islamabad.

So how to settle? The PDM leaders predict every jalsa would amount to the opposition climbing up the escalatory ladder. Their rhetoric will toughen, their position will harden and their attitude will stiffen. If any quiet conversation has to happen between stakeholders, and if any backchannel has to open between feuding rivals, and if any space for a resolution has to open up before the big guns open — if all of this has to happen, it has to happen sooner rather than later. Each passing week makes the window of opportunity smaller and the prospects of a flare-up larger. We may not have entered the blind alley yet, but we can see it from where we stand today.

But does the PTI government see it? Not if one goes by its actions so far. Prime Minister Khan has ordered his lieutenants to reach for their political arsenal. There will be no let-up. The unceremonious exit of Fayyaz Chauhan as Punjab’s information minister — again — and the grand entry of Dr Firdous A. Awan heralds a new kind of assault on PDM leaders, especially Maryam Nawaz.

The prime minister is scheduled to address a public rally in Hafizabad this week. This event will illustrate very clearly the modus operandi the government is adopting for the next few weeks. Actions speak louder than words, but here words will define what actions are in store.

In Washington DC and in GB; in Michigan and in Multan; in Pennsylvania and in Peshawar — two systems with two sets of rivals in two parallel universes are being tested for their ability to resolve conflicts with minimum damage. Who do you bet on?

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2020