Achi news desk-
Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi often says “Every political career is bound to end in failure.” The 2024 General Election was a perfect testament to this quote – when it comes to Pakistan’s biggest political name, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. The sadness on his face these days is not because he has not become prime minister for the fourth time, but because he knows how he will be remembered in the history books of this country: a man who gave the best of everything just to give up everything one last time. There is a Chinese proverb to the effect that two men of different principles can never act together, and Mian Nawaz Sharif’s last step in politics was to try to act in concert with his brother’s different principles and his daughter’s different goals. Above all, he had to abandon his own moral stance to form a very weak government where his coalition is based on weak friendships with his political archenemies. He must question what he gained by coming back, if all he has got is the same government that his brother did in 2022 with PDM.
As he landed in Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif was shown a large crowd in Lahore. Little did he know that it was the result of a preparation that lasted for two months, and a deception by his political team in Pakistan, which promised tickets to 5-6 people in each constituency if they brought 2-3,000 to the jalsa. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry went around in every constituency of Punjab and rallied people, made groups, and tried to tell everyone that the ticket was in their pockets. Even PML-N foreign workers flew to Pakistan because their leaders told them that if they could bring people, he would guarantee their ticket. This whole process was strategically short-sighted for PML-N because it succeeded in achieving the goal of PML-N gathering a large crowd, but it also created a false sense of security in the minds of the leaders and created broad groups in almost all constituencies. Nawaz Sharif’s treatment at the airport and PML-N’s media appearances started building a perception of “Baat Ho Gayi Hai,” which became the second nail in Mian Nawaz Sharif’s coffin.
For the next three months, over a thousand ticket contenders met Mian Nawaz Sharif. His daughter’s comments of “Now everyone wants a PML-N ticket” reflects that the Sharifs are extremely confident in their work and are eyeing a strong one party government. Mian Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Balochistan and MQM’s announcements, along with the quick end to his corruption cases and sentences, created a very strong perception that PML-N is now going to form a government on its own. PPP’s anger showed that they too had started to realize that they were up against the wall compared to how things were going for the Sharifs.
As elections were announced, Nawaz Sharif sat in Lahore for almost a month vetting candidates. For one seat, he was interviewing around 20 candidates. His manifesto was being delayed, and all PML-N was posting on their social media were videos of candidates praising the courage of Maryam Nawaz Sharif during their 2018-2022 tenure as an opposition party. As the election campaign progressed, Mian Nawaz Sharif did only 1/5th the number of jalsas compared to his campaign in 2013. His speeches only focused on the price of things in 2013 -18 and what is it now. He completely ignored his brother’s government, and his workers also focused only on 2013-18.
After a colossal mistake of creating an impression that Nawaz Sharif was supported by Powers That Be, he made another grave mistake of not recognizing the inflation and poor economy created by his Ishaq Dar in 2023. What he should have ‘to do was try to acknowledge the failure of his party and give hope for tomorrow. Shehbaz Sharif, for his part, knew that Ishaq Dar is not a smart person to run the economy at all, and so they should have distanced themselves from him. Surprisingly, he kept repeating two things: 1) the price of household items in 2013-18 and 2) that Pashtuns of KP are easily cheated. This elitist and racist message has never been seen in his speeches before. He would make a speech and then invite Maryam Nawaz on the stage to signal to his workers and the world that she is going to become the PML-N leader in the future. It almost seemed as if Maryam Nawaz and Ishaq Dar were controlling Nawaz Sharif, and his judgment would be clouded by their suggestions.
All this, along with growing frustration in the general public over inflation above 40%, back-to-back judicial decisions against Imran Khan, and pressure on PTI from the system (rejecting their election symbol, arresting workers, and new cases ). against candidates), created a perfect storm in the minds of mute voters who went to the polling booths and gave an unprecedented number of votes to PTI. For the first time ever, a political party won a significant number of seats in Punjab while running an anti-establishment agenda.
This result was not only a major victory for Imran Khan but also an end to PML-N’s political philosophy of passive aggression. Mian Nawaz Sharif came to Pakistan, had the full support of the system, faced no opposition in Punjab, and was basically the only horse in the race – and yet was defeated by a party that symbolless and leaderless. .
Almost all his group of friends in the National Assembly have been defeated, and whenever he goes to the assembly, he faces extreme challenges and chants of “thief/cor” from PTI MNAs. He knows that if he goes back to the UK, that will be the end of his political career. He also knows that if he continues to support the governments of his brother at the federal level and his daughter in Punjab, and continues to promote his own family and friends to the highest positions and fails a second time, we will now be PML-N. able to survive. The strained fiscal situation, the political crisis at hand, and the growing phenomenon of Imran Khan will also continue to contribute to a slow and painful political death.
It can be argued that Nawaz Sharif’s career has ended in failure, and it will be an extremely tough year for his brother as well. If his brother’s government fails to provide relief and goes down, Mian Nawaz Sharif and PML-N will run out of any message to give to the public and will be restricted to less than 20 seats in the National Assembly next time.
On the other hand, PTI’s growing troubles also mean that a big space has been created for a new political force to emerge. Because the country is in such a bad state and people have lost faith in the three political parties, the country is now in an economic situation like India was in the early 1990s. The only way out of this is to get competent people who have experience in the public and private sector – and who know the machinery system of the government of Pakistan – to form a new political party and start giving answers and hope to the young and middle-aged population. of this country.
