KARACHI: When asked about the newest member of the Punjab political scene, election experts said that although the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party has not been able to influence candidates in the same manner as past “king’s parties,” it may be able to draw in the PTI’s victorious “independent” candidates after the election.
“The IPP is probably looking to take NA97 Faisalabad, NA143 Sahiwal, NA155 Lodhran, NA117 Lahore, and NA149 Multan — though in many of these, the other candidates are very strong,” says Nadia Malik, head of Geo’s Election Cell. The PML-N’s alliance and seat adjustment with the IPP, according to Malik, are focused on “National Assembly seats where the PML-N itself was weak or didn’t have strong candidates.”
Is it conceivable for independent candidates, such as PTI candidates, to join the IPP after the election and gain more seats? According to Malik, it “depends on what the independents gain more from and how the post-election scenario plays out.” However, since they are aware of the rage of PTI followers, those who prevail over them will worry about their political future. However, ministries and customs have a certain allure of their own.”
It appears that the IPP is treating the seats it is running for seriously. IPP Patron-in-Chief Jahangir Tareen had declared at a press conference on Friday that he was thrilled to be running from Multan, his “home constituency,” referring to the city as their “identity.”
Declaring Multan his “focus,” Tareen emphasized his commitment to building the Multan constituency.
Senior PML-N politician and PML-N Punjab vice president Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan says in an interview with The News: “IPP is our strategic partner.” These friends and allies were on the right side of history during the VoNC. Their position was that the PTI had duped them and that their people had also been the victims of this deception. They so took part in the VoNC. We hold these people in high regard.”
The PML-N has finalized the current seat adjustment scheme, which is explained by Rana Mashhood: “The issue is that there are powerful individuals with a long history of affinities and affiliations in each of our [PML-N] constituencies.Since shifting to the side of all of our committed party candidates would be difficult, a significant effort was made to adjust seats with the most significant IPP allies. Getting these people to move to the side as we accommodated allies and then getting our voters to vote not for the “sher” but for another symbol were challenges, but we have faith in our supporters that they are politically mature and that this adjustment that we have made now will work and that it will work also. It must be mentioned that, on average, we have had 12–15 nominations in one constituency. In some places, there were more than 30 nominations.
Where do he think the independent PTIs are going? Rana Mashhood asserts that “independents usually end up going to the party that has the strongest chance of forming the government, the party that can help them get work done in their constituencies.”
According to investigative journalist Hassan Iftikhar, who has closely examined Punjab’s present electoral landscape, “The IPP has been a massive failure.” The PTI’s independents haven’t taken a shine to the IPP way they have other kings’ parties that are formed ahead of elections.”
Iftikhar provides a brief summary of IPP candidates: “I believe the IPP is only running in about 11 National Assembly seats from Punjab, plus one from Islamabad.
In each of these seats, the PML-N and the IPP have not exchanged seats. Two Lahore seats, 117 from which Aleem Khan is running and 128 from which Awn Chaudhry is running, have had their seats adjusted. One is located in Sahiwal on the seat of Noman Langrial. Although they have one candidate running for the provincial seat in Taxila, they have adjusted their seat against Chaudhry Nisar and have not placed a candidate against Ghulam Sarwar of the IPP. Jahangir Tareen was supposed to face Siddique Baloch of the PML-N in Lodhran, but Tareen was able to persuade the PTI candidate not to run, therefore now Lodhran is between the IPP and PML-N. The PML-N has changed seats with Tareen in Multan.
Iftikhar claims that strong PTI candidates have opted to stay in office in a number of constituencies, despite becoming independent: For instance, the Nawani Group, which is rather powerful locally, shifts its allegiance according on the direction of the power winds in Bhakkar. They are running separate campaigns this time as well. Even though a lot of people are under pressure to attend the IPP, many of them are preferring to run independently instead of attending the party.
Does this imply that PTI independents who win won’t join the IPP? Iftikhar suggests that they might: “It’s possible that these independent candidates run for office under the PTI’s banner and then join the IPP when they win.
