IT is rallying time in Lahore. The Sharifs are preparing to reassert their strength with a show in their own city on Oct 28. His PTI buoyed by the relatively recent ideal of chasing the Sharifs, Imran Khan is to follow it up with a jalsa of his own two days later.

There has been a show of strength by Islami Jamiat Talaba recently. Its parent, the Jamaat-i-Islami, will be keen to flaunt its credentials just when anti-government sentiment is being whipped up and new alliances appear likely.

There has also been a leftist protest in Nasir Bagh, a park which may retain its adopted name because the inspiration behind it died with his reputation intact. Having said that, the old title, Gol Bagh, more aptly describes the helter-skelter, often circular, course of politics in Pakistan.

The leftist demonstration was a derivation of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ drive in the US, also emulated in other parts of the world. To Pakistani protesters, these drives are the beginning of a process to irrevocably discredit the capitalist system and recreate the space for any number of socialist choices to flourish.

The power players tend to view these thoughts as dreams which have been dashed before and which have no future. But this offbeat stuff does fulfil an immediate purpose: it allows the desperately craving the grey areas in which to live and operate.

The rest is power politics. The Jamiat rally was a timely reminder to old allies in the PML-N of the Jamaat’s ability to provide numbers for a street push. The 100,000-strong rally last week dispelled some recent impressions.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s promised revival of students unions in March 2008 has not so far been followed up on. The government has other important matters to deal with and the politicians have remained silent on the subject. This has been to the Jamiat’s advantage during a period where some campuses had shown signs of growing anti-Jamiat sentiment. There has been just no one to capitalise on the students’ initiative against this quite purposefully unruly and intimidating arm of the Jamaat. The Jamiat is ready to be exploited by its parent body. The problem is the old ‘natural’ partners in the PML-N have this time not been as ready as in the past to make up with the Jamaat.

The Jamaat’s positive overtures have thus far gone unreciprocated by the PML-N leadership that is otherwise calling for a coming-together of political forces against President Asif Zardari. The Sharifs may not be too averse to the Jamaat’s presence in a crowded alliance of various political parties but are reluctant to enter into a bilateral arrangement with the Jamaat much of whose vote bank the PML-N has made its own over the years.

Popular in its old traditional stronghold, the PML-N is not without a visible desire to break away from the past. Its leaders are striving to convince the people — at least some people — that they are in the process of reinventing themselves, shrugging off effects of Gen Zia and adding a bit of Bhutto to their rhetoric.An alliance solely with the Jamaat without the presence of other parties could run counter to this effort and the PML-N for the moment prefers to maintain clandestine contacts with the avowedly anti-US Islamists.

The rallying cry for the PML-N rally on Oct 28 is ‘go Zardari go’. The party’s leaders, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in particular, are adamant in their argument that the country needs elections. A fair poll they say is impossible so long as Mr Zardari is sitting in the presidency.

That begets the question: what possible measures within the constitution, and outside, is the PML-N considering to ensure an election which is conducted after the removal of the Gilani government and more importantly, according to the PML-N’s own demand, after the throwing out of President Zardari?

If the current set-up is allowed to continue and elections are held on time one year and a few months from now, Mr Zardari will be there as president, watching over an interim prime minister as provided in the constitution. The PML-N’s ‘go Zardari’ refrain means the party is looking for greater — constitutional or not-so constitutional — disruption than a simple exit of the Gilani government.

The ‘go Zardari’ slogan at this moment is easily, almost obsessively, tied up with the coming Senate election. That may be a half-truth. Notwithstanding the prospects of PPP gains in the Senate, traditionally, an opposition is most eager to scuttle any government efforts to garner popular votes in the months leading up to a general election.

The public perception in the PML-N-dominated areas of Punjab may be that such a task is beyond the blundering PPP government. But the more conversant political activists say they cannot rule out some kind of a PPP comeback given that they are unable to overcome their suspicion of Mr Zardari being a wily politician and also given the fact that, despite the advance estimates of who can win how many seats in the polls, a third-party intervention cannot be ruled out.

It would be fallacious to say Imran Khan’s PTI is only a threat to the PML-N in Punjab. For instance, the PPP has in the past drawn its share from amongst the youngsters who today pin their hopes on Mr Khan. Yet, it is a reality that the PTI has gained ground, and quickly, after Imran Khan decided to, finally, launch an offensive on the Sharifs.

Until not long ago, Imran Khan was quite lenient about the Sharifs and as he took on the likes of Gen Musharraf and Mr Zardari he quite often passed as a PML-N appendage. A bit wary of the power-sharing between the PPP and the PML-N, many in Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab appear to have taken serious notice of this change in the one-man PTI. Mr Khan has nothing to lose by holding his rally so close to the PML-N’s.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.