Re: PTI versus PMLN
PPP leaderless, PML-N threatened by Imran Khan - thenews.com.pk
**ISLAMABAD: A battle royale started on Friday as all political parties, major and small, kick started their 21-day long hectic campaign for the fiercely fought May 11 general elections.
Despite going through the nerve-shattering rigmarole of allotment of tickets for the past couple of weeks, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and other political forces have chalked out elaborate schedules of campaign rallies across Pakistan especially major cities and towns, led by their key leaders.
The crucial phase of filing nomination papers, their scrutiny, submission of appeals against their acceptance or rejection and decisions on them by election tribunals will conclude on Tuesday. Any contestant can bow out of the competition next day. The final list of candidates with their election symbols will be issued on April 18.
On the following day, feverish public canvassing will get off the ground at a top gear. The swing vote may turn out to be a deciding factor in the outcome of the May 11 fight in certain constituencies but it is anybody’s guess as to which of the principal parties will be able to manipulate it to its side.
However, this vote will have marginal impact in constituencies where the lead of candidates of any party over their rivals would be huge. But in areas where the edge would be minor, the swing vote would play a key role.
Since launching his PTI 17 years back, its Chairman Imran Khan is in the election theatre with a bang for the first time. In this sense he is a novice in electoral arena and is pitched against veterans like PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, who has to his credit of running successful campaigns in several elections after 1985. Imran Khan’s previous performance in the electoral field was absolutely dismal.
It is evident that Imran Khan will be the lead campaigner for the PTI team. Its vociferous activists and supporters want to listen to him rather than other its leading lights. They are visibly jaded when other senior PTI stalwarts come on the rostrum to speak. In the past couple of years, Imran Khan proved through a few huge public meetings, two in Lahore and one each in Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi, that he has the ability to pull crowds and carry the audience.
It will largely depend on his electioneering as to how far he will be triumphant in galvanizing his support into votes to bag a respectable number of seats in the national and provincial assemblies that make him a force to be reckoned with in the parliamentary politics.
Imran Khan will hardly have the band of top PTI leaders like Javed Hashmi, Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen with him during the campaign because they have to be present in their own constituencies most of the time where they are facing formidable rivals.
There is no gainsaying that the prime focus of Imran Khan’s attack in the campaign will be on the PML-N that has to stomach his severe onslaught after his successful October 2011 public meeting at Minar-e-Pakistan ground Lahore, which brought the PTI on the political centre stage.
Since then, the PML-N is very scared of Imran Khan’s political bearing. However, it has planned to counter him using its expertise and skill about excellent electioneering. Much before engrossing in the frenzied campaign, Nawaz Sharif especially went to Britain for medical checkup to get his doctors’ advice about the frantic activity he is going to undertake. He got a go-ahead. Obviously, he would be accorded a good helping hand by his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who is also a good campaigner and can take pride in running the Punjab exceedingly better than other for five years.
It is widely believed that the PML-N will secure a massive victory if it succeeded in taking care of the grave threat posed by Imran Khan. But there is no doubt anywhere that the PTI would definitely damage the PML-N, and the only question that is being debated is the extent of such harm. The PML-N and PTI will remain concentrated on Punjab in their respective electioneering, considering the numerical weightage the province has in the National Assembly. Punjab is the real battleground.
The PPP is still unclear as to who will spearhead its election campaign, when it is to start just after four days. President Asif Ali Zardari is unlikely to engage in this activity in view of his official position and judicial rulings. He has no plan to campaign for the PPP. Since the unfolding of the election schedule on March 22, he has remarkably restricted his political activities.
The PPP seems reluctant to fully launch Bilawal because of serious security concerns. There is no other central PPP leader, who can pull crowds and sway voters.
In Punjab, Manzoor Wattoo is in-charge of the campaign. But the hardcore PPP rank and file is shy of according him recognition due to his recent entry.
In Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah will run the show, and how far he will appear the voters is known to all and sundry well. Anwar Saifullah will spearhead the drive in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). He too is a newcomer in the PPP and faces the crisis of acceptability.
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