PML-N’s future

• Time to read the tea leaves

Pir Sialve’s Gujranwala Conference didn’t produce any resignations – though there was chatter as well as precedent – but that’s unlikely to bring much relief to Rana Sanaullah or Shahbaz Sharif. Now the Pir, who casts not just a religious shadow across central and southern Punjab but also a very pronounced political one that stretches all the way to the Senate, has given till Dec31 for either Rana’s or Shahbaz’s head. He’s also, perhaps more ominously, asked his followers not to vote for PML-N next time. Ironically, Tahirul Qadri’s PAT has given the same deadline for resignations of both ministers – a strange throwback to the dharna days when PTI and PAT, quite coincidentally, marched on Islamabad on the same date. Also, it’s not as if the sword of the Model Town case is not still hanging over the Punjab government. So, the noose yet tightens around the PML-N.

Perhaps these uncertainties have pushed back plans to name Shahbaz heir apparent for the next election. Of course, the party is well within its rights to wait till the Central Executive Committee meeting. But following a leak to the press with silence is like asking for the grapevine to go active in Islamabad’s peculiar political climate. Nawaz took his sweet time but naming Shahbaz the next PM candidate was pretty much written on the wall. However, with the Pir’s and PAT’s agitations threatening to snowball and, again, the Model Town flame still not extinguished, could Nawaz be having second thoughts.

There’s not very long left before the election, so it’s time for PML-N to finally read the tea leaves. On the surface it does not have a candidate with the credentials of Shahbaz Sharif to take over for the 2018 election, but if some of the many brewing outside storms can dent him between now and the vote, the party will be left completely rudderless. For a while now PML-N’s strategy has been vague. From ‘some forces’ conspiring against it to a hazy leadership structure, it hasn’t quite spelled out its election strategy. Perhaps now, while things are still manageable, it should connect more openly with the vote-bank.