IT is impossible to explain an election result. There is a box office quality about the outcome of voting. A candidate looking for public approval may follow the formula to the smallest detail, yet be rejected by the people who decide. In its stead, totally unnoticed fare may get the audience’s nod, like Iqbal Shah has just got in Lodhran.

Iqbal Shah, with his dervish demeanour, is your ‘art film’ — low-budget and lacking in frills. With the ordinariness of a real-life character, he has shocked the cash-heavy formula of Jahangir Tareen. Shah Sahib, a pir whose family is known for donating land in the area for welfare projects, has won without even showing interest in having power, so far as the national viewing of his masterly act is concerned. On the other hand, his sudden rise has been brought about by a variety of small, local factors.

The break came when the first choice PML-N candidate for NA-154 apparently ruled himself out of the contest. It is said that Siddiq Baloch, who defeated Jahangir Tareen in 2013, before that election was declared void, didn’t want to spend on a by-poll campaign only a few months before a general vote. This opened the door for Iqbal Shah, adding an artistic/real element to the campaign at the expense of glamour and fanfare.

There was room for creating a contrast between Shah Sahib and Ali Tareen, the young rival making his debut. In turn, for wider national viewership, it helped promote an image of the Tareens overwhelming their opponents, which turned out to be an illusion, a smokescreen that allowed deft local practitioners of grass-roots politics to work their magic behind the scenes for the PML-N.

There was room for creating a contrast between Shah Sahib and Ali Tareen, his young rival, in Lodhran.

Mian Nawaz Sharif says Lodhran has vindicated his case against his disqualification. The local journalists who watched the amazing PML-N success story unfold from up close, however, insist that the secret lay in the anti-Tareen camp being able to narrow the focus of the campaign down to local factors.

The chief architect of the ‘upset’ victory is said to be Abdur Rahman Kanju, a federal minster and MNA from another Lodhran constituency. The local discussions identify him, over and above as a PML-N member, as the leader of the Shaheed Kanju group named after his father Siddiq Kanju. Abdur Rahman, who won against the big parties in 2013 as an independent, was able to put together the winning alliance in NA-154 this time, comprising various powerful local groups. He is again going to be crucial to the PML-N cause as the party sits down to pick its candidate for NA-154 in the next general election.

The grapevine says the modest and humble Iqbal Shah — or his group — only agreed to take part in the by-poll after having been assured they will be an automatic choice for the ticket in the constituency in the general election. But there are others in the run for the coveted PML-N nomination, eg the local press has quoted a son of Siddiq Baloch, the ‘original’ PML-N candidate who fought and won in the 2013 general polls, as promising a return of the family to the NA-154 contest under the Sharif banner.

It is going to be difficult for the PML-N leadership because these are all quite powerful local elements the party has to choose from at the time of selection for the candidates for the next general polls. Just as the Tareens will have to find a way around the tough front these groups make up in case they stick together under some power-sharing formula worked out within the PML-N.

In an unmistakable tone of disapproval, the local observers say that the Tareens had tried to overcome the problem by flashing their riches. That didn’t quite work, in fact, contributed to the contrast between the real and the pompous.

The PTI candidate would perhaps disagree with the impression. His supporters would come up with a whole line of images in which Ali Tareen, almost childlike in appearance and casual to a fault, is seen running his campaign in the friendliest of ‘awami’ styles.

But while the PTI tries to figure out what went wrong on the decisive day, the local accounts are filled with how Jahangir Tareen was allegedly absent from Lodhran after his win and how little he was able to achieve for his chosen constituency during his tenure. And they say he reappeared on the scene in his expensive awe-creating helicopter in quest of planting his son in local politics. If this was a forced move, it came too close on the heels of Jahangir Tareen’s attempt to establish a foothold in his chosen constituency.

If any such thing is possible in today’s Punjab, this is by far not a Tareen fief, dynastic politics being one aspect the Lodhran voters apparently being not too concerned about. As Abdur Rahman Kanju is quoted as saying, if the mission is good, why shouldn’t a son follow in his father’s footsteps? R.Y. Khan, where the elder Tareen won many an election with the help of Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, was more of a home pitch for the Tareens than Lodhran, where they first fought an election only in 2013. Messrs Jahangir and Ali will have to put in a lot of work before they can claim to have a true sense of or a grip on local affairs.

And as Ali Tareen goes about his greenhorn persona, he can perhaps make it a point to not appear too casual, almost in the mould of a mild-mannered school student fighting an election to be class prefect. He must not appear too casual or patronising when he only means to appear confident. He was just too fresh, just too much of a change for Lodhran to deal with.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2018