Two main contenders start early campaigning
General elections are not due until May 2018, but both the PML-N and the PTI are already making their pitch to the otherwise ignored and forgotten voters. Their massive gatherings are growing in frequency, intensity and fiery rhetoric. The once proud and popular PPP is only a sorrowful shadow of its former self, adrift from its power base of the downtrodden. The hasty campaigning has perhaps been occasioned by the threat of early or snap elections. The tremors of Panama Leaks, past scandals and new storms, and political and personal infighting, may still make this contingency a reality.
The voters witness their top leadership in living colour on television, harping on accomplishments with a comically cavalier disregard for the truth and past history, each casting the other in the villain mould, while being a paragon of righteousness oneself. Both parties have reached the conclusion that in rhetoric, offense is the best form of defence. The PM addressed public meetings at Okara on April 29, Layyah on May 2 and Chichawatni on May 12, while the PTI Supreme Khan graced Malakand on April 25, Islamabad on April 28, Karachi on April 30 and Sialkot on May 7. Nawaz Sharif usually emphasizes his developmental work and fidelity to traditional values while taking the mandatory dig at his nemesis Imran Khan, and the PTI leader lambasts him and his family, especially after Panama Leaks, for unbridled corruption, ruining state institutions and ignoring merit. He also pointedly stresses that his own assets are all Pakistan- based, a particularly wounding targeted argument, no doubt.
Using unlimited state resources and propaganda, it is possible to fool all of the people all of the time in the modern era. It is said that Abraham Lincoln could never become US President today because of his unfortunate habit of speaking what was actually on his mind. But promising credulous and mostly illiterate people all manner of goodies and amenities, rather along the lines of Neelam Ghar, and not delivering on them, will also not be forgotten by unforgiving voters. Hopefully.
