THE most difficult position in all of Punjab — some might even say Pakistan — is currently held by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed. Leading an opposition consisting of 56 members, split across seven antagonistic political parties, against 314 PML-N legislators is proving to be an immensely arduous task.

Compounding the issue is the ruling party’s de facto insistence on maintaining floor discipline and unity on legislative matters, which ensures that bills are bludgeoned through the treasury benches without too many second thoughts. Given this context, periodic squeals and cries, and perhaps the judiciary’s mood, remain the opposition’s only hope for affecting law and policymaking in the province.

Imran Khan is fairly cognizant of this reality. He knows full well that the five-year monopoly accorded to the PML-N by voters in Punjab can turn into a 10- or 15-year one if the government plays its cards even marginally right.

This is partially why he’s chosen to go into protest mode — talking about mid-term elections and taking on big-ticket items like Nato supplies, drones, inflation, and most commendably, polio vaccinations. It’s a desperate way of keeping the party in the news till it produces something flashier and flaunt-able by way of good governance and service delivery in KP. The other half of the opposition, the PPP, is rejuvenating itself in Sindh, whilst appearing considerably deflated in Punjab. The party’s district organisations in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin have been torn apart by factionalism, and most recently in Lahore, the city’s president and former ticket-holder — Arif Naseem Kashmiri — defected to the PML-N.

As Mian Manzoor Wattoo gears up for a mobilisation tour of North and Central Punjab ahead of next month’s local government elections, there is plenty to suggest that he continues to be viewed as an outsider by the party’s rapidly depleting rank and file.

The impotent condition of their political opposition in Punjab is probably a comforting sight for the PML-N’s leadership. Their biggest challenge continues to be the peaceful accommodation of their constituency level lynchpins, primarily through local government elections, and the sustenance of their core electorate — through policy interventions and patronage.

At a deeper level though, this current electoral configuration is proof of how the party has kept up with Punjab’s changing socio-political landscape.

There are two clear indications of this comparative advantage that the PML-N enjoys over others in Punjab. The party’s constituency-level structure continues to enlist highly skilled, and successful ‘political entrepreneurs’ — hard-cut characters who’ve made their bones through local government elections during the 1980s or the previous decade.

Ninety per cent of their ticket-holders in the last general election had contested provincial or National Assembly elections previously (for any number of parties), and nearly 75pc of them had served at least one term as legislators. This preference for experienced, micro-level politicians ensures an active link between executive authority and voters, and one that’s frequently punctuated with patronage and favours.

The second indication is that the PML-N’s top tier recognises the importance of service delivery, and perhaps more crucially, the ‘appearance of doing something’ in the eyes of the Punjabi voter.

From youth-oriented loan schemes, metro bus corridors, large-scale infrastructure improvements, and the right noises over the energy crisis, to the obvious showboating of Bilal Yaseen sealing a few restaurants every week for ‘health violations’, these practices help build the party’s repute as a party of action.

In turn, this repute gives it a clear advantage over the PPP, and a de facto advantage over the PTI, which makes the same noises but isn’t in power to demonstrate its ability.

Facing this context, the PPP and the PTI have two different options — cynical protest politics that attempts to undermine the PML-N at the constituency level, or an earnest politics that builds coalitions of supporters and enduring party structures. The PPP tried to go with the first option in May — apparent by their choice of Manzoor Wattoo as provincial president, and the amount of development money poured into Rawalpindi and Multan — and failed miserably.

Similarly the PTI, initially hoisted by Punjab’s Prado-Prada crowd, ultimately succumbed to the desire of enlisting Jamaat/Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba dissidents, B-grade ‘political entrepreneurs’, and other odds and ends, in their master plan of electoral conquest.

As it turned out, the PTI’s leadership in Punjab, consisting of ex-Jamaatiyas like Ijaz Chaudhry, or second tier characters like Abdul Aleem Khan, simply didn’t have the skill or networks to outmuscle the ruling party.

Clearly, the option failed for both parties in May, and given the strength of the PML-N’s core electorate and its burgeoning cadre of constituency level operators, petty protesting and inducing factionalism won’t succeed anytime soon.

The second option, however, calls for long-run planning and organisation, the ability to demonstrate service-delivery success in KP and Sindh, and most of all, the ability to debate the PML-N’s lawmaking and policy interventions in an objective, public manner. No guarantees of success with this option either, but as of this point it remains the only untested alternative.

To reluctantly borrow some of Khan’s lingo, the PML-N has not only mastered the province’s political wicket, it is actively working to minimise the opposition’s chances of scoring on it. Latest proof of this is the new local government system, which will help accommodate their disgruntled party workers, whilst retaining control with the provincial executive through bureaucratic straitjacketing.

Electoral politics without the presence of an effective, organised opposition can prove harmful in the long run. As Pakistan’s largest province, and in many ways the arbiter of national political outcomes, Punjab stands to benefit from the consolidation of the PTI and revival of the PPP as genuine alternatives for the voters. Till such time, however, it appears to be smooth, unfettered sailing for the PML-N.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

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