Crying wolf?

The establishment, claims Nawaz Sharif, is out to prop up new political parties and create wedges within older, most established ones. Now that might not be too far from the truth, and there certainly is a precedent for that. Nawaz should know.
But there is only so far one can use the establishment bogeyman. If Nawaz was alluding to the PTI and the rifts within the N-League, like the one between MNA Abid Sher Ali and Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah, then some introspection would do him good. Rifts within his party are not necessarily the result of any grand actor but of the peculiar nature of his party. The Punjab chief minister’s penchant for micromanagement, all while alienating his own lawmakers is well-known. Back when the PPP was a coalition member in the Punjab, the running joke around the provincial assembly and secretariat was, who is lesser empowered than a PPP minister in the Punjab? The answer: PML(N) ministers. By relying almost entirely on the bureaucracy and meeting up with legislators sparingly, the CM has set up the seeds of discontent far and wide in its party framework.
On the other front: granted, the PTI has tapped into the largely apolitical demographic – and that it has had help from usual quarters is not too unfounded an assumption – but the League’s far-from-stellar performance in the provincial government has certainly contributed to the newcomer’s appeal, especially within the urban middle-class demographic traditionally enthralled by the League.
The League should beware of becoming the party that cried wolf. Citizens disaffected by poorly performing governments don’t take too kindly to being given lessons in political history and institutional dynamics. The country’s political class has the odds stacked against them, especially when they are in government. Having said that, however, there is only so much incompetence a government can explain away.