Lessons from by-elections

Analysis: Okara— Punjab's political nowhere

NA-144: Rise of independent candidate Juj shows new trends in politics

Lessons from by-elections

Analysis: Okara— Punjab's political nowhere
MOHAMMED HANIF 

Okara is Punjab’s Koofa, says an old local political worker.—AFP/File
WE don’t need political parties. We don’t need your sermons on governance or new this and old that. We don’t want you, move out. While all of Pakistan was watching that contest in Lahore, Punjab politics shifted a gear and moved to another realm. And it happened here in Okara.
In Okara, an independent candidate Riaz ul Haq Juj polled more votes than all the political parties put together. In the last election PML-N’s Chaudhray Arif was one of those super candidates who got more than one hundred thousand votes. Imran Khan held the biggest jalsa in the city’s history during the campaign.
Where did all the votes go?
And why should we care who is the winner?
“Okara is Punjab’s Koofa,” says an old local political worker. “These people can make you king but you take them for granted and you come to a tragic end.” It was Bhutto’s Okara once. There was a strong trade union movement and small farmers didn’t fear Bhutto’s land reforms dream. When Bhutto was hanged at least two citizens set themselves ablaze. Then like most middle Punjab it went over to Sharifs. It was Punjab’s Larkana.

Take a look: NA-144: Rise of independent candidate Juj shows new trends in politics
Then it was Sharif’s other Lahore. And now it has become Punjab’s political nowhere; you don’t need politics to contest elections. You don’t need political parties. Here a relatively unknown man with moneybags can grab power weeks after making a bid for it. When Juj started campaigning three weeks before the by-elections people asked each other who was this guy? He was that boy from Nemat banaspati family. Surely people knew about the family. It’s the richest in the city. And like most rich folks very stingy.
According to the local folklore PML-N’s downfall in Okara started with a casual insult to the family. When the Juj’s family showed interest in contesting the by-election PML-N’s local stalwart quipped. “I shall not let anyone else open a new shop in this town”. Now as it happens, the banaspati family had started making its fortunes by starting a small grocery store. Everyone remembers that little shop. And the family obviously doesn’t like to be reminded of that little shop.
Specially when they have cash to spare. An average candidate is expected to spend about two crore rupees in an election for National Assembly. The family and friends set up a fund of nine and a half crores, says an associate. Money was important for an outsider. It was even more important to create an impression there was more money where those crores came from. “When Juj and his comrades go out to canvass they carry bags of cash in their jeeps,” said a supporter during the campaign. “And if they bring some back in the evening their elders scold them for not spending their day’s money.”
A brief glance at how the family operates might give us some idea about the non-politics of future. They have their ghee mill and a cardboard factory. They are well known as bad paymasters. But their real money comes from trading in sugar. They buy up most of the sugar produced by sugar mills in the area in advance. They pay up in cash. Many retirees come to them with their life’s savings. They are reliable black market investors.
Like most black marketeers in the country the family is big on charity. And they are quite sophisticated about it. Every Ramazan their managers go around grocery stores in poor areas and get information about the poorest households. Then a month’s ration is delivered to these families. That’s the beginning and end of their politics. “You buy a family a month’s ration every year,” a down on his luck theatre artist in Okara told me. “And you can have their vote and their children’s vote.”
When the voters look at a fattened and arrogant PML-N, old pirates like Manzoor Watoo running the PPP and the revolutionary PTI stealing candidates from the old pirate, the man with the moneybags with real cash seems like a logical choice. It ceases to matter that the man delivering you free sugar for a month every year made his money hoarding sugar in the first place.
But all the charity in the world and all the Landcruisers carrying cash can’t win you an election with this margin. Remember Juj got more votes than all the political parties put together. One of the reasons is that everybody forgot there are people who grow stuff i.e farmers. PML-N has been a disaster for the farmers. Okara prides itself on being the potato capital of Asia. The poshest gated colony here is called The Potato Society. “Growing potatoes is not a poor farmer’s work,” said a veteran farmer. “In fifty years of farming I have never seen potato growers drive their trolleys to Lahore and dump potato sacks on Mall Road.” Potato farmers are not a happy lot by nature but I have never seen them so depressed and disgruntled in a long time. And nobody really listened to them. Not even the guy from their own biradri.
The old electioneering that relied on biradris is a folk myth lovingly kept alive by TV pundits. Both the leading candidates in Okara were Arain. “There are no Arain nationalist left,” said the staunchest Arain nationalist in Okara. “The new nationalists are kumhars and lohars. Wait for the local bodies elections and they’ll be voting for their own.”
Why would a rich family with a flare for profit and charity move into politics? Ask Sharifs. They have been here. They may not like it but there is a new shop on the corner.
Published in Dawn, October 14th , 2015

NA-144: Rise of independent candidate Juj shows
new trends in politics
ASLAM PIRACHA 

OKARA: Before the NA-144 by-poll schedule was announced, Riazul Haq was not the choice of the PML-N. On October 11, when the young scion of the Nemat family of Okara city posted a very convincing victory as an independent candidate against PML-N’s Ali Arif Chaudhry, now Riazul Haq, alias Juj, has been contacted by both the PML-N and the PTI to join their parties.
Mr Juj won the by-poll with 85,714 votes against PML-N’s Ali Arif, who remained runner-up with 45,199 votes.
Mr Juj is, however, not in a hurry to decide about his political journey.
“First of all, I’d go to my constituents, including minorities, for consultation regarding my party choice,” he told reporters on Monday. He said he would announce his decision after taking oath as a National Assembly member.
The rise of Mr Juj in the presence of candidates of the ruling PML-N, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and PPP indicates new political trends emerging on the scenario.
It seems that the public elected Mr Juj to acknowledge the welfare work by Mr Juj’s ‘Nemat’ family for the people of Okara city. The family has undertaken several projects in the health and education sectors. Their Fazal Din Trust Hospital and Nemat Family Hospital provide free medical treatment to local patients while one school in Sher Rabbani town and another girls-only in Masters Park provide free education to the students of Okara city. The Nemat family has long been running oil, ghee and papers mills besides a newly-launched independent power plant.
Before the by-poll, the Nemat family was considered an apolitical entity, and its members had just taken part in local body polls for two times.
When an election tribunal disqualified PML-N’s Arif Chaudhry, Mr Juj applied for a PML-N ticket but the party turned down his plea. Earlier in the 2013 general elections, Mr Juj had gone to the PML-N for NA-144 ticket.
When he filed nomination papers as an independent candidate for the bye-poll, the political commentators were not counting him as a major candidate. With the passage of time, he began gaining popularity in the constituency. Just in a three-week electioneering, he staged a huge upset.
The victory of Mr Juj is sure to send alarm bells to the ruling PML-N, which stands the biggest loser in the election. In the 2013 elections, Arif Chaudhry had got 102,000 votes. This time, his son as a PML-N candidate failed to win even a single polling station in the 35 wards of the Okara municipality. The MPAs of allied PP-190 and 191 worked hard for the PML-N candidate but failed.
The constituency has nearly 10,000 Benazir Income Support Programme card holders but the number was not translated in PPP favour. PPP’s candidate for NA-144 in the 2013 elections was Begum Shafiqa Sikandar Iqbal. She had got 33,000 votes. This time, PPP candidate Sajjdul Hassan ended up with a few thousands votes.
Meher Abdul Sattar, who contested for PP-191 on a PPP ticket in the 2013 general elections, had got 32,000 votes. This time as an independent candidate, he got 14,186 votes. PTI’s Asharf Sohna lost his political stature in the by-poll. He had lost election as a PPP MPA candidate in the 2013 elections against Mian Muhammad Munir of the PML-N. Then, he had got 17,800 votes, while in the by-election, he could secured 6,356 votes even though PTI chief Imran Khan had addressed a big rally in the city on Oct 7.
Published in Dawn, October 13th , 2015

Lessons from by-elections

EDITORIAL:Pakistan Today
Politics as it should be
The PML-N and PTI need to draw the right conclusions from the by-elections held on Sunday. While the PML-N managed to win NA-122, the margin was paper thin despite the fact that unlike 2013 Ayaz Sadiq was facing a district level politician with little charisma. The loss of PP-147 which falls within NA-122 further indicates that there is little for the PML-N to feel proud of. The party also lost NA-144 to an independent candidate supported by a PTI MPA. The PML-N used all means at its disposal, some not entirely in consonance with the code of conduct, but could only retrieve NA-122 by the skin of its teeth. This shows that Lahore, or for that matter Punjab, cannot be taken for granted by the PML-N at the next elections when it will have to contest the polls without the resources available to it as the party in power. The PML-N leadership needs to do some soul searching to find why there is a slippage in its popularity.
The humiliating defeat in NA-144 and the failure to get its candidate elected in NA-122 should make PTI review its fixation with extra-parliamentary politics which has harmed the system without adding to the party’s appeal. The tendency has in fact disillusioned a whole lot of youth who were earlier attracted to the PTI. Imran Khan has done little to put an end to factionalism which constitutes the major bane of his party. The factor has negatively affected the hustings. There is also a tendency on the part of the PTI leaders to rely too much on Imran Khan’s glamour, thus neglecting the necessary groundwork.
It is time for Imran Khan to bid farewell to rabble rousing and return to Parliament. The forum provides him the right avenue to keep a check on the government’s excesses with the help of the rest of the Opposition. He can raise his stature and the popularity of his party by making a better use of Parliament.
Curtsey:Pakistan Today. OCTOBER 12, 2015 BY 

Lessons from by-elections

Sir: Two major political parties, i.e. the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) faced humiliating defeats in two out of three by-elections held in Punjab on October 11, 2015. Both parties need to analyse their shortcomings and address real issues that are being confronted by the common citizens, who neither have access to education, health, clean drinking water, employment or security of life and property.


The PTI needs to discuss real issues in parliament and play a proactive role in various parliamentary committees. It should hold press conferences only to expose financial scams and wrongdoings instead of being obsessed with the rigging allegations. The PML-N needs to wake up because the sufferings of the people have not ended yet.


The disconnect between the ruling elite and people has widened. Ayaz Sadiq remained busy in parliament and foreign tours, but could not spare a few hours for visiting his constituency. The masses elect public office holders to serve them, but the elected representatives become property tycoons, land developers, form sugar cartels or acquire liquefied petroleum gas quotas.


The leaderships of both the PML-N and PPP have expanded their business empires because of good management and by employing qualified people to run them, but when it comes to state-owned enterprises and regulatory agencies, they are seen appointing cronies and men with a history of financial impropriety, having no stakes in this country because their assets and families are living abroad. How can the Prime Minister justify the appointment of a foreign passport holder to serve as an Ambassador of Pakistan to Morocco, who has pledged his loyalty and revoked his allegiance to Pakistan while taking oath of citizenship of the UK?


ANEELA CHANDIO,Sukkur

• Curtsey.Daily Times, October 20, 2015

Lessons from a by-poll

  The people of Lahore and Okara have given a message on behalf of the rest of Punjab: that the choice of a candidate, his credibility and track record matter as much as a party ticket. The by-elections should have been a walkover for the PML-N. Instead, its candidates struggled to retain their seats. This shows that all is not well with the way the PML-N is governing this country.

As for Ayaz Sadiq’s marginal victory, it reflects the anger of the people of Lahore against those MNAs and MPAs who abandon their constituents after getting elected. Moreover, the people of Okara have endorsed the disqualification of the PML-N candidate by rejecting his son. The message of these by-elections is that all is not well for the PML-N in central Punjab. The party should look beyond the Kashmiri clan and give preference to merit, competence and credibility if they aspire for victory in 2018. The results also show that Imran Khan has a following in Punjab but he cannot take them for granted.

Malik Tariq

Lahore

PTI’s recent performance in the electoral contests of NA-122 and NA-144 more than proves the point that it still has an urbanised orientation whose workers and advisers are mostly composed of boisterous youth, most of whom are oblivious of the history and political dynamics of our country. Whereas admittedly the NA-122 contest has really been a close call, the PTI candidate was routed in Okara (NA-144) – a town hardly sixty miles south of Lahore. This trend clearly signifies that for the last nineteen years, the PTI has failed to woo rural constituencies (which can be termed the ‘silent majority’ for any electoral contest in our country).

In order to make a significant impact in the 2018 elections, Imran Khan and his team will have to bend over backwards to draw the support of ordinary, impoverished, oppressed masses of the villages of southern Punjab, Sindh and most importantly Balochistan. Theatrical tactics of ‘corruption’ or ‘rigging’ will not serve anyone’s purpose but will in fact contribute towards political instability in the country, enough of which has been witnessed during the 1990s.

Umar M Makhdumi
Karachi
Curtsey:The News, - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 

Parliament watch: After the by-elections,
PML-N and PTI prepare for bigger battle

KHAWAR GHUMMAN 

Voters are done with the by-elections held in Punjab last week, but the leaderships of the PML-N and the PTI are busy analysing the tactics that won or lost them seats in the fierce contest to prepare for the bigger battle – the forthcoming local government elections.
While the by-elections in NA-122 and PP-147 Lahore and NA-144 Okara were about prestige; the local government elections involve political power at the grassroots level.
By reclaiming his NA-122 seat, former National Assembly speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq restored his prestige, and more so of his party, the PML-N. But the party lost the Punjab Assembly seat of PP-147 to the bitter rival PTI. Both parties won by thin margins but claimed moral victory.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was reportedly furious at the party workers for the thin margin and the loss in Lahore, the heart of the bastion of power in Pakistan. Many commentators said the noisy, spirited fight that the PTI put up, under the stewardship of Imran Khan, foretold its rise in the looming local government elections.
For the realists, though, the victory of industrialist Riazul Haq in Okara represented the most meaningful upset in the by-elections, which the media had projected as a do-or-die contest between the ruling PML-N and the ambitious PTI.
His deep pockets didn’t matter so much in the contest as his understanding of the politics in rural backlands, say the realists.
Dawn spoke to a variety of political minders, who understand and watch politics in Punjab, about the chances of PML-N and PTI in the crucial local government elections.
A veteran journalist, who has been reporting both regional and national politics for decades, thinks the PTI doesn’t stand a chance against the well-heeled and well-entrenched PML-N, especially in rural areas of Punjab. “No doubt the PTI will give the PML-N candidates a run for their money in urban centres,” he said. “But contests in semi-urban and rural areas involve more than money - the influence that incumbent MPAs and MNAs wield.”
And that, he was sure, will be on full display in the local government elections. “Alas, the PML-N continues with its time-tested modus operandi: excessive use of the thana-patwari culture for political gains,” he said, wondering at the PTI’s chances “in a scenario created by and for the powerful.”
Poor, innocent villagers are made to realise what would get them the development funds needed to improve their lives.
“How can they dare vote for anyone other than their sitting MNA or MPA?” he argued.
A senior PPP leader agreed with the argument. “May be in a few districts, like Gujrat where the Chaudhry cousins Shujaat Hussain and Parvez Elahi have a cult following, opposition candidates win the local council contest. Otherwise, the PML-N will rule the roost,” he declared.
“Will a party as vindictive as the PML-N allow opposition parties to run a district government? Impossible,” he said, citing the recent elections to the cantonment boards in Punjab in testimony.
When asked for his opinion, a former federal minister of the Pervez Musharraf regime, recalled that the regime discriminated against the district governments where anti-military regime elements had come to power in the allocation of development funds.
A senior office-bearer of the PTI said the party leadership was aware of all these opinions but still accepted the challenge they pose.
“In the cities we will field candidates at all levels but in the rural areas we are facing difficulty in that respect,” he admitted candidly. “PML-N ticket is the first choice of rural aspirants who have their own vote banks for obvious reasons.”
At the best, the local government elections provide the PTI the opportunity to field and test those who have joined it after quitting their old parties in the coming battle. The future looks to the party leaders “a half-filled glass” – not too bad if not bright.
For just taking on the Tiger of the PML-N, right in its lair of Punjab, counts for the party. “We take it as a great achievement,” said the PTI office-bearer.
Going by the trends, the PPP is heading towards a darker period. Only some magic or odd happening can bring it into spotlight again in Punjab. In last week’s by elections, the party candidates polled votes just in hundreds - a sad commentary on the fall of a party which once mesmerised the masses and ruled the province and the country under its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Today, the PPP finds its present steward, Asif Ali Zardari, reluctant to learn any lessons from the past mistakes and hoping against the hope that the party will stage a comeback as it did in the 1990s and early 2000s.
“The best option for the PPP at the moment is that Mr Zardari takes a backseat and let Bilawal and Asifa Bhutto (his children) steer the PPP. Otherwise, we are doomed,” said a PPP leader and former federal minister.
Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2015