By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz on Sunday suffered a devastating defeat in by-polls as the ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf made a clean sweep on 20 seats elections for provincial Punjab assembly.
The shock election defeat is a major blow to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif whose Chief Minister son Hamza Shehbaz is all set to lose his post. The results also raise concerns for the coalition government which has to face national polls possibly in four months.
Khan’s PTI has won 15 seats while Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) secured only four, initial and unofficial poll results showed.
The electoral battle was seen as a key test of the popularity for the ruling Pakistan Democratic Front (PDM) coalition and its main rival, Khan’s PTI. However, the by-election was largely a two-way contest between the PML-N and the PTI to have a decisive edge in the Punjab assembly.
On the ground, PDM’s campaign was spearheaded by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz, while Khan led from the front to motivate party cadres.
Maryam Nawaz conceded her party’s defeat, “We should accept our defeat with an open heart,” the daughter of PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif said in a tweet. “In politics, victory and defeat is a part of the game. We will see our weaknesses and remove them.”
Punjab was under the control of the PTI until April, when then-Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar resigned after the national assembly took up a no-confidence against Khan. The PTI’s subsequent nominee, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi for the position of chief minister was defeated as a faction among the party’s lawmakers voted for the PML-N’s candidate instead.
The ECP later de-seated the lawmakers for illegally voting against the party’s directive, leaving 20 seats vacant.
Political commentators says Khan, a former cricket star, has skilfully used his narrative of foreign conspiracy in his ouster from power during whirlwind trips ahead of polls. Khan campaigned against the ruling coalition of colluding with the military establishment and the US to push him out.
Skyhigh inflation touching almost 22 percent and unpopular reforms under the IMF bailout programme also influenced voters against ruling party. Criticism is growing against the coalition government of Sharif as he has so far failed to do anything to address the key economic problems.
Khan thanked party workers and voters of Punjab for defeating, “not just PML-N candidates, but the entire state machinery, especially harassment by police and a totally biased” Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
“The only way forward from here is to hold fair and free elections under a credible ECP. Any other path will only lead to greater political uncertainty and further economic chaos,” Khan said on his official twitter handle.
Earlier balloting concluded in all 20 provincial assembly constituencies after a tense but largely peaceful day at polling, although a few isolated and seemingly spontaneous incidents of violence were reported from some areas.
The ECP says it received a total of 13 complaints from various areas, almost all pertaining to violence among voters, all of which were immediately resolved.
A 12-year-old boy was killed in a clash in Sheikhupura while police arrested PTI leader Shahbaz Gill along with some armed men from Muzaffargarh for violating code of conduct of the ECP.
No major instances of rigging surfaced in any constituency until the closing of polling booths although some minor or failed attempts at rigging were reported. At some polling stations in Multan female voters complained of being urged on by the female polling staff to prefer a particular party candidate.
Incidents of violence were reported from PP-168, 158, 125, 272 and 97 and the police were seen handling the situation efficiently.
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