FIRST half exciting, second half formulaic: purely from a spectator’s point of view this is 2013 election in a nutshell.

Reminiscences of the 1990s that we all dread in the new Pakistan which we all seek to create today. This is not a warning, just a reminder that history must not repeat itself. Some of the unwanted bits from history have already been allowed too many repeats.

History says an election which is controlled is transparently unfair. In 1990, a few officially recognised minders of the state of Pakistan were moved by their conscience to purge the country of the unclean. Money changed hands to thwart selected politicians. The election was fixed. The levers have since travelled to the militants. The results are uncannily similar.

In the 1990 general election, more remembered by many today because of the Asghar Khan case, it was a landslide victory in Punjab for the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad. The IJI won 91 of the total 114 national seats in Punjab, while the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA) got only 14. Yet the Ittehad’s all-Pakistan haul was 105.

Back then, just as now, the Sharif-led side got an overwhelming majority in Punjab. PPP (PDA) was reduced to 10 seats in the province. The big difference was that despite it being a majority party there it did lose Sindh. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a collage of various hues as it has remained to this day. Balochistan is delicate now and was sensitively poised even before when the IJI did manage to have its government there as it did in the three other provinces.

They say things have changed over all these years. The 1990 experiment ended less than three years into Nawaz Sharif’s first government in Islamabad, but the country has since proven it can have a full term of civilian rule and has grown up sufficiently to have a civilian to civilian transfer of power.

The government that ruled between 2008 and 2013 failed miserably, going little beyond ceremonially discovering and gleefully acknowledging that it had been allowed to breath beyond the average life span in Pakistan.

Election 2013 is a brutal reminder of just how much the party which headed the last coalition has suffered. The lack of campaign was an issue, but there were other problems which the vote on May 11 provided a grave confirmation of. A lack of governance has exacted a huge price from the PPP, which may have at some places been unsettled by the administration’s bias for its rivals.

In an emerging divide between the new (PTI) and the old, sections of the population which felt more secure with the conventional, had to choose between the PML-N and PPP. They sided with the PML-N, which offered them possibilities and security the PPP was in no position to offer.

Security against militancy was an extremely important election issue in Punjab though the pre-election speeches may not have reflected this. The last coalition’s failure to either co-opt or eliminate the militants was a major if not the deciding factor behind their bad performance at the polls.

Unless their appointed protectors appear powerful enough to quell the militancy, reconciliation is the only viable option for the people. No amount of persuasion will convince the Pakistani majority to own the war unless there is evidence to convince them that this war can actually be won. This is human nature. Until then, they will be naturally inclined to look for security via deals.

There are a few recent examples to be emulated nonetheless. As a significant sign of evolution the political commentators agree that, even with the huge mandate behind him, Nawaz Sharif will have to display the Asif Zardari trait of ‘reconciliation’ to keep matters intact and running, as opposed to Zardari who kept it intact but hardly running.

The divide runs through parliament, with PPP maintaining a strong presence in the Senate, and the provinces looking poised for either non-PML-N governments or difficult coalitions.

Balochistan has been the subject of many positive overtures by Nawaz in recent times. In government his initial test will be which nationalists he chooses to partner with and that choice will reflect how much leeway other important ‘non-political’ actors are willing to allow him in the restive province.

For how long they will allow it, is a moot point and will decide exactly how much progress democracy here has actually made. Nawaz has to be given an opportunity to play positive in Balochistan to avoid a repeat of what happened after a similar mandate back in the 1990 polls.

KP represents an altogether different challenge. It is where the PML-N and its new challenger the PTI face off against each other. The PTI is buoyed by its youth while the PML-N, though it has won a number of seats in the KP Assembly, has been bruised.

Many of its old stalwarts have lost in the election and the party organisation is not in all that good a shape following some of the recent engineering works carried out by the leadership in the name of repair.

KP, the province which rejects parties with a facility and frequency unmatched in the country, is all set to offer the next phase of the Khan versus Sharif fight. The first question is, are the people in KP able to differentiate ideologically between Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif? Or did they also vote with the same mindset with which many in Lahore cast their ballot?

For a large number of voters in Lahore the election on May 13 was not a rejection of one party in favour of the other. Ideologically, a distinction was difficult and experience in administration competed with change and enthusiasm.

One option was good but the other was good enough. That must change now.

The nuances must emerge to help people tell one contestant from the other, in Punjab and more likely in the ever impatient KP.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.