Analysis: Khattak saves the day for PTI

Published March 7, 2015
Pervez Khattak's last-minute politicking saved the day for his party and its volatile chairman Imran Khan.—Online/File
Pervez Khattak's last-minute politicking saved the day for his party and its volatile chairman Imran Khan.—Online/File
Pervez Khattak's last-minute politicking saved the day for his party and its volatile chairman Imran Khan.—APP/File
Pervez Khattak's last-minute politicking saved the day for his party and its volatile chairman Imran Khan.—APP/File

One has to master at least three things to be able to win and outmanoeuvre rivals in the contest for Senate seats if you can’t match their deep pockets: mathematics, strategy and political acumen.

Besides, one has to be cautious. In politics, there are no friends and no enemies and there are no permanent relationships. Political relationships are fleeting. And politics is ruthless.

This is the sum total of the lessons from Thursday’s Senate elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The nerve-wracking twists and turns in political alliances, squabbling, resourceful candidates and the walk-in interviews for potential turncoats were enough material for a suspense-thriller.

But the climax of the high drama that many had waited for with bated breath instead ended with a whimper.

There were no large-scale defections. Not that there weren’t many seemingly willing to sell their souls to the devil. There were. And if one were to believe the figure doing the rounds, there were 26 such characters within the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf alone.

You have to hand it to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, whose last-minute politicking saved the day for his party and its volatile chairman Imran Khan.

It was not easy though. Barely a few hours after the wily politician from Nowshera had laboured a seat-sharing formula with Aftab Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, his party chief descended on Peshawar to annul the agreement.

Take a look: Senate election and its set of controversies

Khattak was not happy. Hours of marathon meetings at the city’s five-star hotel and Speaker House had been wasted. Khan had thrown a spanner in the works.

It took the CM some time and effort to persuade his chairman to drop his opposition to political alliance with the PML-N and allow him some space to work out a formula. Khan relented only if Khattak would not make the arrangement public. Pragmatism had prevailed.

The arrangement worked to the advantage of the two parties. An astute Khattak formed a ‘chain’ wherein members are required to bring out and show their ballot to prove their loyalty.

The ‘chain’ had worked in the past and there was no reason why it would not have worked this time. The Pakistan Peoples Party, which had widely been suspected of orchestrating the get-a-member drive, cried foul and forced suspension of polling.

Know more: Imran, Khattak pursuing conflicting strategies

But when voting resumed Khattak seemed more confident than he was in the morning. By the time voting was coming to an end it was more than evident that Khattak’s efforts had worked.

His support ensured that the PML-N, other than getting retired Gen Salahuddin Tirmizi elected as a Senator on a general seat, also got enough votes to get Javed Abbasi elected on a technocrat seat.

This was remarkable. The PML-N, which was apprehensive that it would barely eke out a seat for Gen Tirmizi, got Abbasi as a bonus. Clearly, while Khattak’s craftsmanship helped the PML-N win not just one but two seats, he also ensured that his members stayed together and did not slip away.

This put considerable strain on those out to get votes over their party strength in the KP Assembly. The PPP’s Khanzada Khan, whose party has only five members in the assembly, got nine votes in the first count. Where did the remaining votes come from?

You don’t have to be an Archimedes to work this out. Look at the party positions of the QWP, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and PML-N and match them with the first-count votes their respective candidates received.

The QWP and the PML-N lost two members each, while the JUI-F lost one member — four votes went to the PPP’s provincial president, while one vote went to independent candidate Waqar Ahmad Khan, that solitary vote being that of the PML-N’s Wajihuzzaman. The N-League dissident from Mansehra had publicly revolted against the party leadership and announced his support for Waqar in lieu of his support for his mother, who also lost the election.

Waqar had strived not only to get enough votes for himself, he had also worked hard to manage votes for his brother, Ammar Ahmad Khan, who was contesting on a QWP ticket. Ammar also lost, due to the defection of two QWP members.

The party led by an otherwise adept Sherpao didn’t win a single seat, despite having so many members. On the contrary, the Awami National Party, which has only five members, managed to get a former female minister elected on a women’s seat, with the support of the PPP.

Luck and money, it seems, did not help the Dera Ismail Khan clan from their father, Gulzar Ahmad Khan, down to the two sons, whose riches apparently know no bounds and whose only political pastime has been to contest and win Senate elections.

In retrospect, had the political parties agreed to a formula debated earlier and shown pragmatism rather than being overly ambitious and greedy, they all would have got something akin to what they got now.

The PPP wanted two, it was offered one and it got one, albeit in a questionable manner; the JUI-F, which stuck to its demand for two seats, wanted a third but was offered one seat. It got one.

A confident Sherpao, who had fielded one candidate and would have been happy with one general seat, had offered to remain contended with a single seat, should all parties agree, has been left high and dry.

The events leading up to and during the Senate elections have bruised and shaken all the political parties but more than that, the shady behind-the-scenes deals with wealthy political fortune-seekers, the wheeling and dealing and political jockeying have tarnished their image and the image of the institution they all were vying to get into.

Published in Dawn March 7th , 2015

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