THE power riots, for now mainly concentrated in Punjab, are connected to power politics. It has to be so when Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is quoted as saying the people’s “hatred for the PPP is at its peak today” and that the people are “now looking to us”. It is in the same breath that he speaks of long, painful electricity shutdowns. To his critics, the chief minister’s anger betrays his failure to overcome a crisis or two of his own. The lethal spread of the dengue virus in Lahore and other Punjab districts has earned the provincial government many negative points. It caps a period in which the working style of Mr Sharif has come under increasing criticism, and typically, there has been a visible effort on the part of his camp to blame the hopeless state of affairs in the country on the federal government. This time, the attack is much more intense, more coordinated at the party level and accompanied by so far the severest power riots which have the PML-N seal. This signifies the likelihood of an expansion of the movement in the coming days.

The only problem the PML-N has to contend with is that, as the party in power in Punjab, it must not appear to be failing to fulfil its responsibility to control those attempting to thwart law and order. Thus far it has managed to escape widespread suspicion, aided by public sentiment; the power protests reflect genuine anger against the Zardari set-up for its inability to bring relief to the people.

Mr Shahbaz Sharif has for long appeared as the proverbial unhappy younger sibling whose ambitious advance is kept in check by a more deliberate approach by his seniors. That PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has chosen to adopt an equally stern tone against the president and the PPP government now makes the opposition threat more meaningful. At the PML-N meeting on Monday, Mr Nawaz Sharif was ostensibly acting on his party’s counsel for asking PML-N workers to join the power protests. But this sentiment has existed within the N-League since the 2008 election, and the crucial question as always is: why now? Presumably, Mr Nawaz Sharif believes the federal government is at its weakest now, due to its inability to come up to both external and internal expectations. Besides, the PML-N has just come face to face with the military establishment at the all-party conference and cannot be faulted for trying to ensure that the alternative which the people see right now is not lost on those who matter.