“DON’T take my picture, don’t print my name — on second thought, go ahead, how much more can they break me?”

This question asked by a young man in Gujranwala’s main bazaar just days ahead of the elections reflects the mood of many young voters across the country. There is fear, there is defiance — and there is the element of surprise. Will voter turnout be high? Will polling day pass without horrors? Will results be delayed?

There are elements of the 2018 election atmosphere — allegations of pre-poll rigging and an unfair contest, fears about manipulation and security threats — but they feel even more pronounced as the head of the country’s most popular party — and his party symbol — are out of the race.

Camp PML-N oozes the cool confidence of a would-be victor — a sharp contrast from the last election when the three-time former premier Nawaz Sharif was incarcerated. Then his party was the clear underdog, but the situation could not be more different today. With a campaign largely confined to Punjab launched as late as mid-January, the Sharif family flew to and from rallies in a helicopter, and had to often exit early as they explained to their supporters that they had to fly out before darkness.

What does their voter think? “Nawaz Sharif has the magic wand, and he will wave it when he comes to power,” a supporter told me in a busy market in central Punjab. But he warned: “We are prepared to wait for the economic situation to improve, but this time he must complete his term.”

Although this voter isn’t shy to ask about the prickly relationship between Nawaz Sharif and those who removed him — perhaps still charged by the now a bandoned slogan of ‘vote ko izzat do’ — Mr Sharif himself preferred to avoid it in his campaign, instead focusing on pledges of economic prosperity and big infrastructure projects.

No doubt, his return to Pakistan has reinvigorated the party and its vote bank, but was there enough fire in his public engagements? Will it help the PML-N cross that coveted three-digit threshold to make government?

At 35, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the youngest chair of a political party, kicked off his election campaign in November and managed to traverse the north and south of the country to hold rallies in major cities across the four provinces. The energy of youth is undeniable, and Mr Bhutto-Zardari is confident his presence in every major part of the country will yield results — but will the PPP bag much more than the 43 NA seats it secured in 2018? Bilawal’s Lahore constituency, where he faces off against PML-N’s Ata Tarar, is already a pitched battle as allegations of threats and vote-buying are being thrown about.

In south Punjab, the IPP and its leader Jahangir Khan Tareen avoided media engagements, but promised uplift and development to voters. Mr Tareen had been absent from his constituency for some time owing to health issues, and the obvious challenge of his disqualification, but with those issues out of the way he appears confident of his party’s chances.

Key battles to watch are the Lodhran seat he is contesting against a PML-N candidate, and theLahore seat contested by IPP’s Awn Chaudhry, who is up against PTI-backed Salman Akram Raja.

By and large it is understood that Mr Tareen will, as happened after the 2018 election, jet around the country and woo victorious independents to cobble together a government — for who, it is not yet clear.

The turnout today will cement the fate of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, which has managed to put up a remarkable fight without its leader and senior leadership, without large public gatherings and without billions spent on a campaign.

Money and electables matter, Mr Khan had told Dawn ahead of his party’s election victory in 2018. His fractured party now has to show that it doesn’t.

Independents who are ideologically with PTI were too scared to campaign openly, but locally everyone knows their name and symbol. “We all know our candidate, we all know our symbol,” many young men told Dawn in Muridke, Sheikhupura and Lahore, where the fear of a crackdown on PTI election activity was heightened in the week before polling.

From catchy songs about election symbols, to viral digital campaigns to educate voters, the TikToks, vlogs and Facebook posts appear to have done the job. The consecutive sentences against Imran Khan too, have reignited anger among his supporters.

Those dismissive about Pakistan’s smartphone penetration should not take them lightly: the so-called ‘Facebook party’ has support in every corner of the country.

“We eat Sher’s biryani, but we will vote for Balla,” a young man in Nankana Sahib confessed. This sentiment of lying low, professing support for a ‘safe’ party, but voting for the PTI in secret, is palpable in the heart of the province.

Can you fool all the people all the time? Voter turnout will tell.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2024

Header image: Supporters of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari cheer during a rally on the last day of the election campaign in Larkana of Sindh province, on Feb 6, 2024. — AFP