No sweets, only a smile

Published October 19, 2018
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

NO surprise basket of sweets arriving at the newspaper office in the early hours after the polls this time. Instead, you will have to make do with a broad grin. Humayun Akhtar Khan has lost. Hamza Shahbaz Sharif’s party is alive and kicking.

A journalist working on the PML-N beat beams that it is a transformation time for HSS. The observant gentleman says he does not recall Hamza ever before sporting a grin as broad as he recently did during the budget session of the Punjab Assembly. Others who were at hand report that HSS complemented his smile every time he slipped in a quiet but mischievous slogan, which in itself was a rare occurrence for someone who has obviously modelled himself on the old no-nonsense, pre-Maryam mannerism of his hugely successful uncle, Mian Nawaz Sharif.

Spearheading the charge, HSS was so incessant and so relentlessly in-the-face in his expression that he took some of the focus too quickly away from Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. Needless to add, BBZ is HSS’s major competitor in the ever-running who-is-the-best-among-our-next-generation’s-rulers competition. BBZ, ever the darling of the dreamy-eyed fringe desperately wanting a PPP revival in Punjab, had dazzled participants at a meeting to honour one of Lahore’s most brilliant souls, Asma Jahangir, only a couple of days earlier.

Many of your average activists had chosen to mention the meeting because of the guests the organisers should not have invited. But as we put off this rather serious issue about how the ‘others’ in important seats are in the habit of courting our heroes, for the benefit of royal heir watchers, let it be known that BBZ did apparently make a good PR impact there, for a voyager in Punjab virtually having to work from scratch.

The Sharif sentiment is similar to the delight expressed by a condemned man who has just been promised a new life.

HSS’s was another kind of smile, almost a suppressed laugh, a mocking giggle in glee that was hard to conceal. It was a manifestation of relief only two days after his forefathers’ party scored some scintillating victories over the PTI in the Punjab heartland. Effectively, Hamza’s smile matched the loud sigh of post-election relief heaved by the PML-N’s devotees in the province. Contrary to their worst fears, not only can the PML-N play, it can win too.

An opposite message was feared to be on the way. A ‘surprise’ loss of Khawaja Saad Rafique at the hands of Humayun Akhtar could have been sufficient proof of the worst of times approaching the N-League. Saad Rafique’s big win, along with good news from polling stations in Attock and especially Faisalabad, is the kind of reassurance the PML-N was looking for. This is cause enough for the smile that HSS now boasts.

The same mood was reflected in the talk by Mian Nawaz Sharif outside a court on Monday, after he had not contributed as much as a word towards the PML-N’s by-election discourse. And in no small measure, it was the high drawn from the election that was so stoically manifest in the counter-revolutionary address the ‘suspect’, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, delivered to the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The Sharif sentiment, as showcased by the family’s three leading men, is similar to the delight expressed by a condemned man who has just been promised a new life — so great is the influence of the Oct 14 election in which the PML-N did so much better than what anyone thought it would be allowed to.

PTI supporters who choose to take it lightly will do so at their own expense and peril. The government’s tendency is to reject all ‘allegations’, containing all kind of reasons and causes and situations that may have led to the party’s rather weak showing, especially in the upper and central parts of Punjab. A more constructive approach for the young and ambitious PTI government would be to accept all these explanations for its below-par performance as true, and then try dealing with the problems one by one.

There is no point denying party rifts because they are there for everyone to see. Angrily insisting that past governments are responsible for our woes is obviously not the resolution we are looking for. The people are not going to go looking for former ministers to pour scorn on for the miseries of today. It will be far more convenient for them to vent it on the here-and-now incumbents, the principle at work here being that all governments and all ministers are born anti-people.

Let’s presume that some semblance of reality can still seep through the grandiose illusion of governance the PTI, like all others, is in the process of building for its own happy deception. The good news for the nazriyati PTI-ite is that which says the skipper has noted, with concern, the disconnect (already?) between the party and the ‘common man’.

This is where the basic lesson offered by Saad Rafique can come in handy, ie you never go out of a contest once you have decided to fight. He has been there in it right from 2013, when he was fielded as the PML-N’s candidate in NA-131. He was there facing the original PTI dharna then, and he was there warning against any attempt at stealing his victory on Oct 14 now. An old practitioner of politics who has seen it all, Khawaja sahib was ready for the long vigil. He was not going to allow allegations that have plagued contests, particularly in the areas that now comprise NA-131, to re-emerge.

The 2013 election was not the only one in these parts of Lahore mired in controversy. In 2002, the PML-N’s Akram Zaki had all but been declared a winner of an NA seat there. However, the tables were later turned, as it emerged that it was actually Humayun Akhtar who won the seat — the victor, in true tradition, celebrating his feat by sending sweets to journalists. Alas, there was no surprise sweet package this time. Only a meaningful smile.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2018

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