Looking for meaning in a by-election result comes with the usual caveats. Too much should not be read into by-elections. The electorate is often uninterested. A general election can and does often produce very different results.

Yet, sometimes the result speaks for itself. Short on principle and consistency the PTI may have been in backing the independent candidate Mohammad Amir Dogar, but the party has proved a point: it continues to attract voters.

And clever as the PML-N may have tried to be in backing a former party member, Javed Hashmi, in his bid to defeat the PTI of which he was until recently a member, the N-League has demonstrated that all is not well in Punjab as far as the party is concerned.

To be sure, given that the seat was won by Mr Hashmi on a PTI ticket in May 2013 and the PML-N is not a dominant force in south Punjab, the pluses for the PTI from Thursday’s by-election result are bigger than the PML-N’s minuses.

For the PML-N, NA-149 may be a single seat that had not been with the party to begin with, but there is a wider problem: several more by-elections will have to be held in Punjab once the PTI’s en masse resignations from the National Assembly take effect.

And while the distance between Multan and Lahore may have once been great, perhaps as great as the distance between an urban and rural voter in the province, poll trends in Punjab suggest a flattening out of the electorate with similar themes animating voters across regions.

The public may not have turned on the PML-N over the last year, but neither is it enthused by the party’s performance at the centre — and possibly even at the provincial level. Similarly, while Imran Khan’s message may often be muddled and contradictory and his support base not growing enormously, his core theme of dissent is resonating with many sections of the public.

The democratic, constitutional system is not delivering adequately or quickly enough in the public’s estimation and people are willing to look elsewhere for hope. The PML-N’s stodginess, stubbornness and listlessness are only compounding a sense that it is either out of touch or unable to deliver on the raised expectations of the public.

Still, one by-election does not necessarily make for a reversal of May 2013. The PTI will be cheered by the win, but there is also a warning of sorts buried in Thursday’s results: without a plan and without the capacity to execute it, any party that campaigns on hope will suffer the electoral consequences of unmet expectations.

Much clearer is the continuing decline of the PPP in Punjab. NA-149 was essentially a two-horse race, with the PPP candidate absolutely nowhere. Is the PPP’s decline in the province terminal? The results would appear to suggest so.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014