Constituency politics is tough business. It gets even tougher when the public support that party candidates are counting on for their electoral victories is quickly dwindling.

Voters can be brutal and unsparing when they have a strong alternative party candidate to vote for. Former MNA and two-time Minister of State Abid Sher Ali has learnt this the hard way, after tasting two consecutive defeats from his so-called ‘family seat’ in Faisalabad. He lost twice to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in the span of a little over four years — first in the 2018 general elections and, later, in a by-poll last year.

Prior to this, Abid had won three elections when running from this predominantly urban constituency, which consists of major city markets, lower-middle class localities and a large population of the Christian community. The first time he won was back in 2002, when his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) — also known to be the GT Road party because of its absolute dominance in Central Punjab — had gone into the polls with its entire top leadership living in self-exile in Saudi Arabia.

So, when PTI’s Farrukh Habib trounced him by a paper-thin margin in 2018, Abid and his supporters were surprised and quick to adopt PML-N’s narrative of “elaborate engineering”, suggesting that the powers-that-be had propelled Imran Khan into power.

The conviction of Nawaz Sharif by Supreme Court in an alleged corruption case and his life-time disqualification from holding any public or political office in 2017 — as well as widespread reports of intelligence agencies forcing PML-N candidates across Punjab to either switch their loyalties or withdraw from the race altogether — gave credence to the party’s allegations that certain powerful quarters were making every effort possible to manipulate the outcome of the elections.

Central Punjab used to be such a stronghold for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz that it was also dubbed the GT Road party. But has the last year of economic turmoil and a changing demographic allowed its main rival, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, to breach the Noon-League bastion?

But Abid’s second defeat, a few years later, from the seat he had ‘inherited’ from his father, Chaudhry Sher Ali, was a much more comprehensive one. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan polled nearly 25,000 votes more than Abid in the October 2022 by-elections in Faisalabad.

That loss, coupled with the PML-N’s heavy losses in the by-elections in 20 provincial constituencies in July last year, reinforced the perception that PML-N was losing its edge in its own backyard of Central Punjab, only months after it had led the successful opposition effort to remove Khan from government through a vote of no confidence (VoNC).

Signs that the party is facing serious challenges from its rival, the PTI, have not only persisted but strengthened over the last year. How popular the League once was in the 21 districts of the five central divisions — Gujrat, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Lahore and Sahiwal — and what is at stake for PML-N in the upcoming elections, can be gauged from its electoral performance in 2008 and 2013.

Although the party was almost decimated by the military-backed ‘King’s Party’ — the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), created by Gen Pervez Musharraf by breaking away strong electables, mainly from the PML-N, through the use of his new anti-corruption outfit, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) — it bounced back by winning 43 out of 90 national seats it contested in these districts in 2008, according to election data obtained from the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

This was despite the fact that the Sharif family had just returned home from exile and that the murder of Benazir Bhutto had sparked a wide wave of sympathy for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) across the country. The remaining seats were shared by the PPP, PML-Q, independent candidates and other smaller parties.

In 2013, PML-N decimated all its rivals in Punjab, raising its tally to 80 out of the 90 contested seats. PTI won from just four constituencies and argued that the Najam Sethi-led caretakers in the province had stolen at least 35 seats from the party.

The PPP, which had won 21 national seats in the previous polls, simply faded out of the political scene in Central Punjab in 2013. Nevertheless, PML-N’s electoral fortunes in this region took another hit in the 2018 elections, as large blocks of the anti-Sharif vote — comprising inactive followers of the PPP, a growing urban middle class, young urban voters and others — discovered a strong and credible alternative force in PTI, worthy of their votes. PTI bagged 27 seats in 2018 as PML-N’s tally was reduced to 50 seats out of the 82 contested constituencies in Central Punjab.

Abid doesn’t subscribe to the widely held belief in his city that Imran Khan’s popularity is growing. Instead, Abid blames “certain hidden and unhidden forces” for continually plotting against his party and its leader Nawaz Sharif, to bring PTI back into power.

But he reluctantly concedes that the PML-N’s popularity has taken a big hit during the last one year of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government and that voters are angry with the party for failing to control the record inflation.

“We have lost a lot of our political capital,” he tells Eos at his election office in New Nazimabad, a small middle class housing scheme he has developed on the land of a textile mill. “People have this impression that we removed Imran Khan just to change the NAB laws to stop inquiries and end cases against us. No one cares that we have put our political capital at risk to save the state of Pakistan from imminent collapse due to the previous regime’s bad policies.

Signs that PML-N is facing serious challenges from its rival, the PTI, have not only persisted but strengthened over the last year. How popular the League once was in the 21 districts of the five central divisions — Gujrat, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Lahore and Sahiwal — and what is at stake for PML-N in the upcoming elections, can be gauged from its electoral performance in 2008 and 2013.

“But you cannot blame the voters for their anger,” admits Abid. “People are hit hard by the soaring prices of electricity, petrol, food and what not. They’re struggling to cope with possibly the toughest economic conditions ever. Who cares if the deal Imran Khan had negotiated with the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and his actions during the last days of his government triggered the present economic turmoil.

“Or that the conspirators are still active and not letting us restructure and reform the economy and tax the untaxed segments. What they see is that they can’t pay their bills. It is not an easy situation for the common man.”

For people like Mohammad Tayyab, a garments trader from Rail Bazar, one of the eight bazaars surrounding the colonial-era Ghanta Ghar in Faisalabad, Abid’s electoral losses are in line with an apparent retreat in public support for the Noon league in the district.

As Tayyab puts it, “There was a time when leaving the League in Faisalabad amounted to political suicide. Raja Nadir Parvez and Mian Zahid Sarfraz are prominent examples of that. Today, Imran Khan’s PTI holds the same sway over voters.”

For a party that had swept the 2013 polls from the Manchester of Pakistan, the loss of six out of the nine contested seats to the rival PTI, and one to an independent candidate five years later, was nothing less than traumatic.

Once an ardent PML-N supporter, Tayyab switched sides and joined PTI a couple of years before the last national elections, mostly because of the so-called ‘hawa’ [wind] that was blowing against his former party, among many other reasons.

“People now are backing PTI because they were happier, and had jobs and thriving businesses under the Imran Khan government,” Tayyab says. “Ever since the coalition led by the PML-N has come to power, life has become extremely expensive, jobs are being lost, and industry and businesses are closing down.”

But Tayyab believes that a bad economy isn’t the only reason driving the public towards Imran. According to him, “Voters are also more aware today, and most of them, especially the younger ones and women, are totally beholden to Imran Khan’s narrative of ‘haqeeqi azadi’ [true freedom] and his stance against the military’s control over politics.

In hindsight, many feel that the Noon League could have regained the territories it lost in Punjab in the last elections, had it allowed PTI to complete its tenure and enter into the new elections carrying the heavy baggage of its incompetent handling of the economy and poor governance.

“What does PML-N have to offer to counter his narrative? Free atta [wheat]? Poor people queuing up, chasing trucks and dying in stampedes for a bag of 10 kilos of free flour has greatly damaged the public image of the Noon League. The Noon Leaguers don’t respect the people.”

PTI’s resounding victories in the July and October by-elections have convinced many that Imran has been successful in making headway into the PML-N’s stronghold in Central Punjab, the region where the PML-N had established its dominance by creating an extensive trade-financed, biradari-based groupings of the local elites, or dharrhas, bonded together through patronage distribution in the form of large development funds.

According to a political analyst who has done extensive research on the country’s electoral politics and wishes to remain anonymous, “The fact that PTI completely routed PML-N in the provincial and national by-elections conducted last year in its stronghold of Central Punjab, is a major sign of Imran Khan’s popularity after his ouster from power.

“Imran even won from those constituencies where the PML-N lost by very small margins. On the one hand, the PML-N’s defeat reflects the popularity of Imran’s narrative of conspiracies against his government. On the other, it is indicative of public anger at the sitting government’s inability to handle the economy, reduce price inflation and mitigate the sufferings of the masses.”

There’s little doubt that the rapidly soaring cost of living will greatly shape voting trends in the upcoming national elections across the districts, even in places like Gujranwala and Sialkot, where the PML-N swept the 2018 polls despite the conviction of Nawaz in the corruption case and all the odds stacked against the party by the establishment.

“The price of electricity, petrol, food and everything else has skyrocketed ever since Imran Khan was ousted,” comments Ghulam Mohammad, a shopkeeper in Shaandar Bazar, located in the garrison city of Jhelum on the GT Road. “Life has become extremely difficult. Sales have nosedived because people have no money to buy anything, even food. Everyone is anxious about the future.”

Ghulam Mohammad further adds, “Our family has always been devoted PML-N supporters. But this time round, we have decided to vote for PTI, even though its MNAs and MPAs are not as accessible to the common people as PML-N’s are whenever we need them. We think that only Imran Khan can fix this country.”

Such sentiments are becoming increasingly popular in most places along the length of GT Road and in the central districts of the province, where the PML-N will fight the final battle with PTI to regain its dominance in Punjab. The aspirants for the tickets of the two parties have started preparing for the fight despite the uncertainty hanging over this year’s elections.

A tour of some central districts of Punjab — Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Sheikhupura and Kasur — shows a widespread resurgence in popular support for PTI’s anti-establishment narrative, reinforced by public sufferings under the current highly inflationary environment. Journalists, traders and others across the province will tell you the same story: PML-N is facing formidable challenges that will not be easy to overcome anytime soon.

Privately, local PML-N leaders and candidates will confide in you that there is no way their party can win a majority in Punjab without disqualifying the PTI leader. The popular hawa [wind] is on Imran’s side, even if the establishment is with the PML-N and its allies, they concede.

At his dera [camp] off the Wazirabad-Sialkot Road in Sambrial, PTI’s hopeful for NA-70, Aslam Ghumman — a retired brigadier who had headed the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment and NAB in the late 1990s and early 2000s — is busy receiving representatives belonging to the local elite and biradaris who, until now, were backing PML-N’s MNA Rana Shamim Khan from the urban-rural constituency.

But now they think that the hawa is blowing PTI’s way because of Imran’s growing popularity and the acceptance of the anti-establishment and anti-American narrative. Many of them are also unhappy with their former party for ignoring them since coming into power.

The constituency houses a large number of small to medium-sized industries that employ a large number of ‘migrant’ workers, mostly from Narowal and Wazirabad. One of the constituency’s important towns, Ugoki, gained instantaneous ‘fame’ almost a year and a half ago when a rabid Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) mob lynched a Sri Lankan national, Priyantha Kumara, who was working as a manager at a factory there.

Despite the rising influence of TLP in the area, no one is taking its election effort seriously and few think that it can make any impact on the elections’ outcome and be a spoiler for either the PML-N or PTI.

“There’s a small religious vote in every constituency,” a police official from Sialkot says, “but it does not impact the election results. The mainstream parties and their candidates always enter the contest with this handicap.”

PTI argues that there’s a big block of PML-N supporters and voters in this constituency, and others in Sialkot, ready to swing to over to its side. “This is in addition to a large number of new, younger voters, who only follow Imran because of his messages of good, corruption-free governance, human dignity and economic self-reliance,” Ghumman argues.

“Even if we are able to woo 20 percent of those who are currently on the fence but voted for our rivals in 2018, along with the new voters, we are sure to turn the tables in almost every Sialkot constituency. This is a big change that has come in Sialkot and the rest of Punjab in the last five years.”

Khawaja Mohammad Waseem, a member of the Punjab Assembly from Narowal, is candid enough to admit that the PML-N’s support base has weakened in recent months. “The truth is that we are competing with inflation, especially in the urban areas,” he tells Eos.

“Everyone is anxious these days. Our voters are also angry with us because the party gave up its anti-establishment narrative and made a deal with the army.”

But he is hopeful that the situation will start changing once the election campaign starts, stating, “National narratives are often drowned by local narratives and needs. In 2018, people knew that the PML-N was not coming back to power and yet they voted for us. Once the uncertainty about the elections is over, and voters realise that the wind is blowing our way and the military isn’t with PTI anymore, the situation will change. We need just six months to flip the disgruntled voters back on to our side.”

But can they? The political landscape of Central Punjab shifting in favour of PTI cannot be attributed to just one single factor. Nor can the rising inflation and economic chaos alone explain this phenomenon. For example, a Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) professor of economics has done some research in a lower-middle class locality on Ferozepur Road in Lahore.

Though conducted on a very small scale, the research revealed that almost the entire PML-N support base in that part of the city has shifted to PTI. The traders, who form the core constituency of the PML-N, aren’t happy with the sustained economic chaos, import restrictions and belt-tightening. The PML-N’s credibility has taken a big hit because of its failure to stabilise and revive the economy, because of which confidence in its competence has eroded.

The tools for patronage distribution through development schemes have weakened because of the economic crisis and because the biradari-led networks the PML-N had built over the decades, are disintegrating.

In hindsight, many feel that the Noon League could have regained the territories it lost in Punjab in the last elections, had it allowed PTI to complete its tenure and enter into the new elections carrying the heavy baggage of its incompetent handling of the economy and poor governance.

However, there are two more crucial elements that have played a significantly greater part in PTI’s recent resurgence than the factors discussed above. The first relates to the demographic and urban transformation of Central Punjab.

At least 64 per cent of the country’s population is below the age of 30, while 29 percent is between the ages of 15 and 29 years. This segment of the population is captivated by Imran’s anti-establishment narrative, which keeps changing according to new political developments and his needs at any given moment.

If we assume that Central Punjab has the same percentage of young voters, we can safely say it could prove to be a major disadvantage for the PML-N on polling day. Over 10 million new voters across the country, presumably young ones who have turned 18 in these intervening years, have been added to the voting body by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) since the last elections.

No effort as such has been made by the PML-N to reach out to them. At the same time, the traditional urban-rural divide has blurred over the last two decades due to the development of a vast road network. Even in far flung rural areas, the population aspires for the same material luxuries and political expression as their urban counterparts.

Moreover, the VoNC against Imran hasn’t gone down well with people in Central Punjab. The public sentiment has changed due to the PML-N’s pro-establishment politics. People know that they had ousted the PTI government with the help of the army, which has hurt the party’s credibility.

When Nawaz was disqualified and removed from power, there was strong wave of sympathy, as many felt that he was ousted illegitimately and his “Vote ko izzat do” [respect the vote] narrative resonated with the people. That’s why his party was still able to win a significantly large number of seats in the central districts. Now the party has compromised on that narrative and is seen by the public as having become a pawn in the hands of the same forces who it once blamed for conspiring against its government to bring Imran into power.

However, while the PML-N may be down, the party is not over yet. Despite the inroads PTI has made in the region, the PML-N still remains a strong political force across Punjab. But it has little to offer to the electorate in the form of a credible narrative, governance or economic performance, just like PPP in 2013. Its narrative of the PTI government’s incompetence and bad governance during its three and half years in power has lost its lustre.

In retrospect, the previous government appears much more competent than the present set-up. Yet, questions remain about PTI’s ability to translate its growing support into a large-scale victory on Election Day, its growing popularity across the length and breadth of Central Punjab notwithstanding.

“PTI will fight the next elections in Punjab on Imran’s popular anti-establishment narrative that has mobilised young voters, women, and middle class professionals in active support of their leader,” suggests editor and journalist Muhammad Badar Alam. “We don’t, however, know how entrenched Imran’s support is amongst the public and whether it is enough to bring people out of their homes and stand in long lines to cast their ballots.

“Based on the high turnout in the July and October by-elections, one could argue that PTI will succeed in bringing out the voters. But then again, the dynamics of by-elections and general elections can vary radically. So does the capacity of individual candidates, to transform party support into votes for themselves. Either way, the next elections are not going to be easy for either side.”

Winning Central Punjab doesn’t automatically propel a party into power. But without its support, no party can hope to reach Islamabad.

The writer is Dawn’s Lahore Bureau Chief

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 14th, 2023