It was an almost American move from Mian Shehbaz Sharif. At an event during his election in Karachi, he walked up to a group of musicians doing a live performance, took the mic from the hands of the singer and launched into the Ahmed Rushdi ghazal ‘Akele na jana’.
Campaigns in Pakistan are far from the ice cream eating, elbow grease rubbing, endless handshaking affairs that they are in America. Candidates with prime ministerial futures rarely get down and gritty with constituents. With only a one month long campaign to run, those running for office here are not at the same pains as they would be in the long haul of American electoral politics. Human moments are far and few in between.
But Mian Shehbaz’s little musical awakening was reminiscent almost of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone in shades on the Arsenio Hall show. That moment is the lasting image of the 1992 elections and is earmarked in electoral history as a moment that endeared a candidate to a nation. Will this be Mian Shehbaz’s saxophone moment? Unlikely. But it was good optics anyways.
Mian Shehbaz also seems to have found his political voice along with his musical one, saying that he would endorse the formation of a national government after the polls. Finding his voice further, he refrained from backing Mian Nawaz’s statement on aliens, saying “The Holy Quran only mentions jinns and nothing else.” Jinns or aliens, Shehbaz seems to be trying to be his own man, and that just might be acceptable to the aliens his elder brother has been going after.
Despite the newfound confidence, he is being careful. He qualified both his statements by saying that while he may be the party president, the ‘party’ (meaning the party Quaid) may not endorse his opinions.
Despite the spark in his voice, things really are not all hunky-dory for the younger Sharif, for he, along with Aleem Khan, Zaeem Qadri, and Moonis Elahi, have all been summoned by the National Accountability Bureau while Qamar Islam has been sent on remand. Shehbaz will be hoping that the electoral comparison he ends up drawing is with Bill Clinton’s saxophone, and not with Hillary Clinton, who was also being probed near election day and quite memorably lost.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan too said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf would be willing to adjust seats. In an interview, Imran went on to admit that there were groups within his party but hoped that these would end once they came into power. Strange, the cracks in his party right now are over the hypothetical. If they do come into power, would the split not grow once the stakes are even higher?
Postscript:
As expected, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Khawaja Asif and Farooq Sattar have all followed Imran in being cleared to contest the polls by the tribunals. Their documents were all rejected on technical grounds. Returning officers have been nosy and over the top until now this election season. One wonders whether the offending returning officers, in this case, will be given a talking to.
