Surprises that await the parties
Unexpected developments witnessed before and during the Senate elections make one wonder if similar surprises will characterise the general elections scheduled for July. The PML-N has suffered a number of setbacks. The PTI has been shocked by its legislators who sold their votes. Zardari seems to have finally come in from the cold.
Two months before the Senate elections the PML-N legislators in Balochistan rebelled against their own Chief Minister, elected a PML-Q MPA as CM and contested the Senate elections as independents winning 6 seats. The PML-N was eliminated from the province. To add to the PML-N’s travails the SC decided that the 15 candidates nominated by their disqualified party chief would contest as independents. Four Senators accused of being dual citizens, three of them from the PML-N, were provisionally allowed to take part in the elections for the Senate Chairman, pending resolution of the issue of their membership by a seven member bench of the apex court.
To the surprise of Imran Khan, the supposed paragon of honesty, it was discovered that at least 17 PTI MPAs from KP Assembly had sold their votes helping the PPP to win two Senate seats. PTI’s Chaudhry Sarwar succeeded in performing the same feat in Punjab Assembly.
Will the PPP manage to get elected a sizable number of MNAs from Punjab to be able to play a meaningful role in government formation at the federal level? If not, it will remain confined to Sindh as before.
Will Imran Khan who has been on the back foot for the last few months build up a momentum in the coming months in Punjab that can double or triple his strength in the NA? If not he will be out in the wilderness on the national level for another five years.
There are straws in the wind which indicate that the PML-N will be fighting the general elections without Nawaz Sharif and Maryam. Will the new PML-N leadership steer the party to victory once again despite the hurdles in its way and joining hands with allies, new or old, form a government at the center? If not, the country could be moving towards a hung parliament.