Re: My Election prediction
PPP is national party & has presence in every region of the country. Also, I think BB's income support program is going to help PPP with poor voters.
@Saleem, what makes you think that PMLQ will get that many seats w/o support/rigging from the establishment?
There are many reasons.
1: I think establishment was against PMLQ winning the election in 2008, and that is the reason even though PMLQ got substantially more votes still much lower seats then PMLN.
(I believe, establishment wanted PPP to win the election and make government with PMLQ as junior partner, so that Pakistan can fight terrorists effectively, but BB died and Zardari wanting to become President, went against plan of establishment).
2: To fulfil their plan, establishment made many PMLQ candidates to contest election as independent and at places against each other. Thus in 2008, many PMLQ candidates contested election as independent and some won the election too. Since PMLQ did not contested these constituencies, PMLQ votes went to independent candidates ... but did not get recorded as PMLQ votes ... still, PMLQ got ~ 8.2 million votes throughout Pakistan compared to ~10.5 million votes for PPP and ~6.7 million votes for PMLN.
[PMLQ got ~5.5 million votes in Punjab and that was highest any party got in Punjab.]
3: Financial situation, available job and other opportunities of most Pakistanis, including students, increased substantially under Musharraf rule and then deteriorated under present political government. Even in Punjab, people have seen worse performance under PMLN compared to what they saw during PMLQ rule. All this is still in people’s memory, even though many in media and some political parties tried to undermine those achievements. All this would help PMLQ getting votes and winning constituencies.
4: Many constituencies PMLQ lost to PMLN and PPP with very thin margin (many due to PMLN and PPP helping each other).
5: Many PMLQ candidates are big landlords who can hold their constituencies irrespective of party, and that means, PMLQ would get those seats.
6: PMLQ has support in all four provinces, especially in Sindh under Arbab Ghulam Rahim, and can do lot of upset in coming election. In my opinion PMLQ would increase their seats in Sindh compared to 2008 election when PPP was riding high in Sindh on accidental death of BB before election.
7: PMLQ would benefit from Musharraf party (APML) not contesting election, as then both parties would have claimed economic success of Musharraf era, and votes would have got divided.
So I believe PMLQ still have substantial votes bank even though they lost 2008 election. On the other hand, even if PMLQ lost some of those votes bank (very unlikely, as there is no reason for that), PMLQ has joined hands with PPP in this election, and that would boost their chances at many constituencies.
Thus, I believe PMLQ would get reasonable number of seats, most likely more than PMLN even in Punjab … though I gave PMLQ lower number of seats in Punjab, as many PMLQ electable who could have got seats regardless of party, left PMLQ and joined PMLN or PPP. But then, I would not be surprised if they would get much more seats than what I assessed. Well, they can get lower number of seats too as it is possible that my assessment is wrong.
Anyhow, that is my assessment and I could be wrong. Let see what really happens in election.