Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lost three National Assembly (NA) seats in the October 14 byelections, two of which were won by Mr. Khan in the July general election and vacated later, in what is widely seen as a reality check for the Prime Minister. Byelections took place for 11 NA and 24 Provincial Assembly seats. Both the PTI and and the Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) won four NA seats each.
While the PTI should be worried after the results and the PML-N was celebrating, the real winner of these elections was the Results Transmission System (RTS), which did not crash this time around. The Election Commission and all political parties can never forget the disaster that was the RTS during the July general election. Opposition parties allege that the RTS crash was a ploy to rig the polls. But over the byelections, there were hardly any such allegations.
Journalist Imtiaz Alam said the results were the first indicator of the downturn of the populist wave that brought Mr. Khan into power. “It must make Khan think about what he is doing as his popularity is going down the drain.” Senior news anchor Gharida Farooqi said main leaders of Opposition parties — the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party — have told her that these byelections were probably the fairest elections since the 1970s.
Questions for PTI
“These byelections were held within 60 days of the PTI government and losing two prime seats in the National Assembly vacated by the Prime Minister has caused damage to not just the reputation of the government but has also raised questions on the PTI’s organisational structure and internal rifts,” said Ms. Farooqi.
She believes Mr. Khan probably does not see any threat to his government’s future and is confident about staying in power. “The PML-N, on the other hand, did get a much-needed morale boost due to the unexpected wins,” she said, but wondered if they can translate it into a turnaround for the political future of the party, which at the moment seems bleak due to Shahbaz Sharif’s arrest and an uncertain future for Nawaz Sharif.
Geo TV’s senior executive producer Marium Chaudhry thinks the byelections were not just a big loss for Mr. Khan but a rude awakening that all isn’t well.
“Imran Khan was banking on two things: his belief in his party’s popularity and the fact that the people tend to vote for the incumbent government in bypolls,” said Ms. Chaudhry. Mr. Khan, after losing Lahore and the two seats that had belonged to him, has changed his course slightly.
“He is now uncertain... He is now trying to salvage his image,” she added. Whatever he does next, Mr. Khan is now not sure about where he stands with the people. And this little inkling of doubt will make him swing back and forth on many more decisions to come, she said.
The PTI’s own candidate Humayun Akhtar, who lost to the PML-N’s Khawaja Saad Rafique in Lahore on a seat vacated by Mr. Khan, admitted in a television show that he lost due to rising inflation. The government is being criticised for not having a road map on how to deal with the dire economic crisis in Pakistan.
Senior analyst Hafeezullah Niazi said that despite coercive measures taken by the government, including the arrest of Opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif days before the byelections, things did not work out for the ruling party. In his view, the PML-N has a new hope after these elections. “I always say this and I will say it again: the public always resists the establishment.”
Mehmal Sarfraz is a journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan
