Rather visible downtrend
The Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly election, the NA-108 by-poll, and the KP local government election, all confirm an all too visible downtrend for PTI, the party that has been riding seemingly impressive public approval since long before the ’13 general election. But that is what is so complicated about PTI. It got through the last election disappointment by turning the whole country’s attention to rigging. And when its dharna lost steam, it was able to come back strong once again through impressive jalsas all over the country. Yet no matter how much the party’s popularity grows on social media and the street, there seems a recurring problem with converting the momentum into votes that mean high office.
Significantly, the rigging part backfired too. It’s not just that the local body election has been disputed by all parties concerned. It’s that PTI’s attempts at face-saving have begun betraying a stunning disregard for reality, and there too a pattern is emerging. First the kaptaan chose to be just as loyal to the loyalist who made off with the ballot box, doing his own, and the party’s, credibility no good. Then the APC fiasco didn’t help matters; nobody was interested and it wouldn’t have done much good anyway, since neither the law nor the constitution allows such a road to reelection. There are also reports that the KP chief minister used much of the available state machinery to aid his brother in the LG poll. More of this will no doubt become clear as investigation is completed.
Of course, what happened at the battle of the Tarrars of Mandi Bahauddin (NA-108), and the Gilgit-Baltistan poll, speaks for itself. Perhaps the party needs to reconnect with its voters. For far too long it has been force feeding adherents on the same script, and that might now be past its sell by date. There is also an increasing tendency among its supporters of wielding the stick far too often. More often than not there are clashes when PTI youth are on the ground. The party must rein in some of its disruptive tendencies and go back to its original motto of constructive criticism, which was how it initially swelled its ranks. This outlook of rash confrontation is not doing it much good.