SWABI: The Awami National Party (ANP), which had utterly failed in the 2013 general elections in its stronghold here in Swabi district, has staged a grand comeback in the Saturday’s local government election while giving an ignominious defeat to its arch-rivals the Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan (AJIP) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidates in 23 of the 54 union councils while unofficial results of two union councils are still awaited.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl has won from nine union councils and PPP one and they are expected to support ANP. The three coalition partners can easily form the district government.

Only 15 days ago when ANP mourned the death of its leader Haji Rehmanullah its rivals predicted that the loss of the local leader had weakened the ANP’s position in the district, as he had dominated the district leadership for 25 years.

However, the ANP leaders were contesting the local government election as ‘mid-term polls’ and focused on the campaign under the slogan “let’s win this election for our late leader.”

The prospects here are that ANP would form its government with its allies and it is expected to be a strong government, posing a grave threat to ruling parties – PTI and AJIP.

When the incumbent provincial senior minister, Shahram Khan Tarakai, was district nazim and there was ANP government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa they had taken various steps detrimental to each other’s interests.

Unofficial results show that AJIP has suffered its first major defeat since 2005 when Mr Shahram was elected district nazim. The 2008 and 2013 general elections were dominated by AJIP. Before the Saturday’s election, AJIP had announced that Biland Iqbal, central general secretary of the party, would be their candidate for the district nazim slot.

Mr Iqbal is Shahram’s uncle and he had won twice from Tarakai union council, but this time he was defeated by Fazal Rahim of ANP with the margin of over 1,000 votes. Mr Rahim received 2,350 votes and Mr Iqbal 1,323.

When contacted, ANP president Ameer Rehman said that they had won from 23 union councils, including seven from PK-32 Swabi-II – the constituency from where Mr Shahram was elected while defeating Mr Ameer in the last general election.

The results from Saleem Khan and Maneri Bala union councils are awaited. He said that they had also won from four union councils in PK-33, Swabi-III, a constituency from which MPA Mohammad Ali Tarakai, Mr Shahram’s uncle, had won in the general election.

“A meeting of the elected members of the party would be held at my residence on Monday (today). We will discuss the party strategy for the formation of the district government,” Ameer Rehman said, adding that the coalition partners would be accommodated.

The ANP is also in a strong position to form Razaar tehsil government, but its position in Swabi, Chota Lahor and Topi tehsils is not yet clear. Observers here said that the PTI and AJIP leadership thought that if they along with Jamaat-i-Islam won a few seats then they could manage to form the district government, but the leaders and workers of the two parties were not loyal to each other.

The JUI-F has won from union councils Jehangira, Jalbai, Tordher, Manki, Chota Lahor west, Tandkohi, Zaobai, Gandaf and Kalu Khan. Maulana Attaul Haq, district chief of the party, said that they would remain in coalition with ANP both in the district and the four tehsils.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2015

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