tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post6729367582204727183..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: London-based Exotix Capital: "Coalition led by PTI has become more likely"Riaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34183046629206575752018-05-11T08:21:15.268-07:002018-05-11T08:21:15.268-07:00Blow after blow dims re-election hopes of Pakistan...Blow after blow dims re-election hopes of Pakistan's ruling party<br />Drazen Jorgic<br /><br />https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-politics-pmln-analysis/blow-after-blow-dims-re-election-hopes-of-pakistans-ruling-party-idUSKBN1IC0VS<br /><br />ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Reeling from clashes with the judiciary and hobbled by media restrictions linked to the powerful military, Pakistan’s ruling party’s once-wide path to retaining power is narrowing ahead of a general election this summer.<br /><br /><br />In the past year, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has seen a prime minister - its founder Nawaz Sharif - and foreign minister both ousted by the courts, while its finance minister, charged with corruption, fled the country. On Sunday, a gunman shot and wounded its interior minister. [LINK]<br /><br />All of this comes before another court ruling due next month that could send Sharif to jail for 14 years over a corruption case he says is a “conspiracy” against him.<br /><br />An alleged religious extremist has been arrested over the gun attack on Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal.<br /><br />That appears unrelated to PML-N’s wider problems with the military and judiciary - both of whom deny pursuing a political agenda. But the assassination attempt adds to a growing list of woes afflicting a party that less than a year ago was deemed a shoo-in for another five-year term.<br /><br />Such a series of body blows suggests the PML-N is unlikely to repeat its success at the 2013 election, which left it with a majority in the national assembly, with most analysts predicting a hung parliament that will usher in a coalition government.<br /><br />“All these other issues that are thrown up just distract the party from doing what it needs to do in an election,” said Huma Yusuf, a columnist and Wilson Center Global Fellow. “It makes it an unequal playing field.”<br /><br />PML-N’s main challenge is expected to come from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, led by cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan, who has promised a radical change for the poor if he is elected as premier.<br /><br />-----------------------<br /><br />Despite the series of setbacks, Sharif is still drawing sizeable crowds at rallies, and a nationwide poll conducted in March by Gallup Pakistan showed PML-N had a 12 point lead over PTI.<br /><br />The party’s fate will be largely decided by how it performs in the vast Punjab province, long a PML-N stronghold that returns 143 of the 272 directly contested seats in the National Assembly.<br /><br />Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a PML-N senator who is on the campaign trail with Sharif and Shehbaz, said PML-N’s message was resonating with voters who see signs of economic progress in infrastructure projects, from six-lane highways and bus transport systems to power stations, including vast projects funded by Beijing as part of China’s Belt and Road intuitive.<br /><br />PML-N also boasts a well-oiled electoral machine built over many decades in Punjab, where Sharif was chief minister in the 1980s and where in the same role Shehbaz has built a strong reputation as a competent administrator since 2008.<br /><br />But PTI leader Khan, whose stock has risen since Sharif’s ouster, believes the path to victory in Punjab will be through so-called “electables”, wealthy and largely fickle politicians who carry large rural vote banks due to their status as feudal lords, tribal chieftains and heads of various clans.<br /><br />At least seven lawmakers in southern Punjab have switched allegiance away from PML-N to PTI this week, and Khan has forecast a flood of defections once the electables see PML-N is unlikely to be on the winning side.<br /><br />“The PML-N grip is breaking as we speak,” Khan said.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.com