IN a week full of cricket, accountability overdrive, and cryptic tweets, Nisar Ali Khan’s latest outburst against Nawaz Sharif nearly managed to upstage everything. Within all the sound and fury in his message, the attack on Maryam Nawaz stood out.

Petulant, the attack may have been but it did once again highlight the challenge the first daughter faces from within the party. While the Chaudhry has made his reservations about her public — too public in fact — it is common gossip that Maryam’s ascension to the N throne has never been a popular move enjoying the support of Noon Leaguers (Saad Rafique once asked her to be careful in an interview while the cautious Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in one his innumerable interviews claimed that the question of Maryam’s leadership has never come up.)

This is in such stark contrast to the PPP, where there was little to no opposition to Bilawal taking over the party leadership — not even when he seemed to have little interest in politics. It’s as if the PPP’s second tier leadership does not seem to consider the possibility of a non-Bhutto leading the party as viable. Ask them and the question usually leads to uncomfortable or incredulous silences.

The PPP appears to have reached the conclusion that their party’s vote is basically a vote for Bhutto and hence has reconciled to the idea that it needs a Bhutto to attract the voter and keep the party together. If there are views to the contrary, they have not yet evolved into debate.

The resistance to Maryam is not simply a result of misogyny or her so-called defiance.

Indeed, it doesn’t seem as if there are any vocal dissenting voices even though there is little evidence that Bilawal can attract the voters in Punjab.

The PML-N, on the other hand, is different. While the party seems to accept a dynastic Sharif rule, there is no consensus on who the heir apparent is. The ubiquitous electables seem to prefer Shahbaz Sharif (now that the elder Sharif has been disqualified), if the utterances of people such as minister Riaz Pirzada are considered. And along with the khadim-i-aala, his son Hamza Shahbaz also forces his way in. His recent inclusion during the jalsa at Sangla Hill proves that even Maryam and the lifelong quaid realise that he can’t be ignored and kept at an arm’s length as he was during the by-election for NA-120.

The resistance to Maryam is not simply a result of her so-called defiance or the misogyny prevalent in Punjab (and the N League). It is linked to the origin of the party led by her father and its relation to the voter in the province. Initially formed to simply provide a counter to the PPP and consolidate the right wing, conservative vote, the PML-N has traditionally attracted voters based on their ability to deliver patronage and services, in contrast to the ‘incompetent’ PPP.

Recent history tends to weigh in on this argument — in 2002, when the establishment had taken an anti-PML-N stand, the party was reduced to a handful of seats in the National Assembly a mere five years after the province sent it to Islamabad with a two-thirds majority.

No wonder then that many PML-N politicians are worried about Nawaz and Maryam’s hostility towards the establishment; these electables fear that with the establishment not on their side, the ability to deliver services and patronage will also pass on to whichever is the ‘favoured’ party, which will be able to appeal to the conservative, religious voter of Punjab.

This digression about 2002 is simply meant to underscore the difference between the PPP, that without any doubt is a party dependent on a family name and charisma for its vote bank, and the PML-N, which also has anointed a family as its ruler but whose relationship with the voters remains unclear; hence the reluctance of its electables to gather behind Maryam. The second-tier leadership doesn’t feel that the relationship between the Punjabi voter and the party is as direct as the one between the Sindhi voter and the Bhuttos.

There is, however, another view that has emerged in recent times — that the vote in Punjab is a vote for Nawaz Sharif. A new slogan, which was rarely heard before the elder Sharif was disqualified, it may require some proof before it’s accepted as gospel truth. And only once it’s established beyond doubt, will Maryam be in a position to lay claim to the N throne.

Once again, a reference to the PPP might help provide some clarity. After Bhutto’s death, BB had to struggle to lead the party — against the ‘uncles’ and her own siblings. In retrospect, her eventual victory was made easier by the fact that her siblings stayed away from Pakistan and opted for violence over politics. And some of her ‘uncles’ flirtations with the establishment undermined their politics, as well as their failure to establish themselves as national leaders. Even then, the return of Murtaza Bhutto to Pakistan in the 1990s created many a worry for BB initially.

Maryam, on the other hand, faces far harder challenges from within the party. Her contenders share her last name and are even more willing than her to put their faith in electoral politics. And neither have they — so far — distanced themselves from Nawaz Sharif. That neither Nawaz Sharif nor Maryam have distanced themselves from Shahbaz or Hamza, too, shows that they too are not a hundred per cent sure of the loyalty of the ‘voter’ to Nawaz Sharif.

In other words, Maryam’s ascension to the PML-N throne is far from certain. And her biggest challenge in rising to the top will come not from the establishment that she has marked as her enemy but from within the party and her own family.

And even before this struggle begins, there is her father. Indeed, at the moment, she appears to be playing the role of Prince Charles, forever the heir apparent, waiting in the shadows of his more popular and charismatic mother, the queen.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2018