 As things stand today in the province of Punjab, the Nawaz Sharif faction of the Pakistan Muslim League is riding a high horse following an epoch-making victory over their close rival and Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. The results of the by-election may almost prove to be a death knell for the latter's political career. What the Nawaz League is out to prove is that it may have been out of Pakistan's political scenario in the days when Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif were in exile after Gen. Musharraf's coup but their political prowess is certainly not down. They came back into the run of things in the February 2008 elections when the incumbent PML-Q lost by a wide margin and the PPP managed to win a number of seats. This provided an opportunity for Shahbaz Sharif to once again become chief minister and take effective control of the Punjab.
The Sharifs had started digging their heels in the province right from Gen. Ziaul Haq's days, back in the eighties when they received all the patronage they could eke out from the military establishment, backed by such military top brass as Lt. Gen. Jilani, Lt. Gen. Rahimuddin and Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul. Nawaz Sharif started making his impact in the province first in his capacity as provincial finance minister and then as chief minister. He then went to do alternate stints as the country's prime minister, handing over the reins of the province in the meanwhile to his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif. Interestingly, it was under the Zia regime that the Chaudhrys of Gujrat too got to drink from the fountain of official patronage, with Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain serving as interior minister in Nawaz Sharif's cabinet.
It was only after the Sharif brothers made a deal with Gen. Musharraf's government and left the country that the Chaudhrys joined hands with the General and formed the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid e Azam (also known as the King's party) and got a chance to play their role in ruling the Punjab. Chaudhry Pervez Ellahi completed his five-year term as chief minister of Punjab and despite maintaining a better record of governance than many of his predecessors in the Punjab hot seat, his party did not do all that well in the 2008 general elections and the advantage again went back to Nawaz Sharif's court, of course with the PPP getting a fare share of the provincial seats this time.
The NA-55 contest between the relatively less known Shakeel Awan of the PML-N and the media savvy Sheikh Rashid, who now heads his own party, proved to be quite sensational in the run up as the public was generally led to believe that there was no way Shaikh Rashid would lose in this constituency this time around. NA-55 represents a section of Rawalpindi that the Shaikh claims to be his very own turf. The results proved otherwise and it was again demonstrated in no uncertain terms as to where the political control buttons are located in the Punjab and where the people's support lies.
The PPP had decided not to field their own candidate in the by-election but the undercurrent of the on-going tussle between Nawaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari was that the PPP put its support behind Shaikh Rashid, creating for him a much bigger voter pool than what he had managed in 2008. However, this too failed to do the trick and Shaikh Sahib did no do better than finishing as runner-up.
According to political pundits, the results of this by-election went quite the way they were expected to, considering that despite Governor Salman Taseer's claims to the contrary, the PML-N rules the roost in the Punjab. The party has fared quite successfully in this constituency in the past as well and especially in the last general elections when its candidate Jawaid Hashmi won by a wide margin against Shaikh Rashid. There was some talk that the PML-N could have been responsible for the deadly attack on Sheikh Rashid and his party men during the by-election campaign, killing three of his close associates. However, not many people believed this because such an act would have hardly served the PML-N's purpose which was already in a strong position in the constituency. There are no clues so far as to who could have been behind the attack.
The defeated Sheikh Rashid has also accused the PML-N of having rigged the NA-55 election. In a post-election press conference, he described the outcome as a victory for the Punjab police and a defeat for the people of Rawalpindi. Shaikh Rashid would do well to realise that while he is not in power, it is customary and largely accepted in this part of the world for incumbent governments to utilize the power of the state machinery for the benefit of its own candidates. The PML-Q did the same when it was in power and this could have happened to some extent in the present instance as well.
However, what is important to ask at this point is that is the PML-N stock really on the rise in the Punjab? Is the party's NA-55 performance an indication of things to come? Does it give Nawaz Sharif the confidence to put more steam into a demand for mid-term polls? Bolstered by the victory, Nawaz Sharif has said this would lead to a ‘change' in the country. What change is he hinting at? Let's hope the elder Sharif will elaborate the statement in the days to come.
For the time being, it must be a source of great satisfaction for Nawaz Sharif to find that recent by-election victories are slowly bringing the PML-N out of the corner it had been forced into post the 1999 Musharraf takeover. If things go well, they could serve as a useful launching pad for the PML-N to make a bigger impact and, having dug itself at the provincial level, it would now prove by action and not by words that while it holds the Punjab, it has the vision and the capability to represent the entire nation. 
Javed Ansari is a senior columnist with long experience in advertising and journalism. He was written in the past for The News International.
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