It is a mystery. The enduring electoral popularity of Nawaz Sharif is something that has puzzled many. The self-deprecatory explanation offered by Punjabis (about other Punjabis, but not themselves, God forbid) is that they will go wherever power resides, hence, the League’s staying power.
But that can’t be it, really. Everyone and their uncle, even across the world, knows who actually calls the shots in Pakistan. And it isn’t the League. Far from that, they also know that the powers that actually run the country despise Nawaz Sharif. And they also know which new political party those powers are partial to. Yet, the League stays.
And, as the judicial commission set up after the PTI’s 2014 “request” showed, the League didn’t rig the elections, at least not in the manner that was being alleged. Just a colouring out of the lines here and there by individual candidates belonging to all parties, PTI included, on election day.
The party has shown that it couldn’t be undone by “organic” approaches like a fair(ish) election. Or relatively organic approaches, like protracted sit-ins by political opponents. But where all else failed, a court case like Panamagate just might have been able to do the trick. The Sharif family didn’t exactly make things easy for itself by doing a shoddy job of justifying its assets to a judiciary that was already hostile. Though it could be argued that the standard that the courts were judging things by was unlikely to be fulfilled by many in our country that has a informal culture regarding paperwork.
Lo and behold, the Sharif dismissal actually did turn out to be on one such seemingly fine-print technicality.
The problem: though they have been caricatured endlessly (and hilariously) Nawaz Sharif’s mujhe kyun nikala rallies this year demonstrated that he still has a massive pull. Despite – or maybe even because of – his anti-military and anti-judiciary line. And the League also had the numbers to change the law and still keep him on as the party chief. Furthermore, recent events have shown that rumours of a fissure in the party’s first family were vastly exaggerated.
But is Nawaz Sharif out of the woods yet? The TLYR dharna – and the upcoming Sialvi and Qadri ones – might have it in them to finally be the League’s undoing. If the party is rendered unable even to canvass a la ANP in 2013 in next year’s polls, Nawaz Sharif’s enduring popularity – still a mystery, mind you – would finally have been undone.
