PTI’s day of reckoning

Poor tickets distribution, nepotism and internal wrangling cost PTI defeat in KP LG polls

Prior to the recent local bodies’ elections held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was known to give ‘surprises and shocks’ to all its opponents, be it through the ‘Tabdeeli’ slogan, its single-minded accountability drive, the one-sided legislation spree and, all the numerous U-turns.

But the “Tabeeli” bandwagon was served a dose of its own medicine in the local bodies’ elections held in 17 out of 35 districts of the KP, in which it suff ered a shock-defeat. Sunday, December 19 would perhaps forever rankle in the PTI’s memory for it failed to secure victory on any of the four metropolitan mayoral
seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. On the other hand, it was a historic day for Maulana Fazalur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) as the religious- political party bagged three metropolitan seats, including the provincial capital Peshawar besides Kohat and Bannu, while it marginally lost the top slot to the nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) in Mardan. The metropolitan position in Dera Ismail Khan has to wait for a later date.

Though the ruling party secured more votes, 789,000 of them which were 34,000 more than JUI-F, it only won 14 tehsil chairman seats compared the JUI-F’s 22. Independent candidates claimed victory on nine seats, while the ANP and the PML-N bagged 466,000 and 267,000 votes, securing seven and three chairman seats respectively. The Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) grabbed two chairman seats with 238,000 votes. But the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) performance was the worst among the top mainstream political parties as it got just 230,000 votes and won only one tehsil chairman seat in Dera Ismail Khan. Apart from Peshawar, the PTI also failed to impress in Mardan, Swabi, Charsadda, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan.

Of course, bad governance and unprecedented infl ation in the country are deemed to be the two very obvious reasons for the PTI’s loss. However, as the Bol News set about investigating the real factors behind the ruling party’s defeat, it became increasingly clear that the prime reason behind its miserable failure was the distribution of party tickets to the undeserving candidates and the discord and disagreement among its own local leadership and workers. Nepotism was another major factor that severely aff ected the PTI’s popularity. In many instances, a number of PTI legislators secured tickets for their family members and wealthy newcomers into the party, which caused a lot of bad blood and eventually caused the
electoral defeat.

But all said and done, is the PTI contrite about its awfully poor show in the KP polls? Or is the party still oblivious to the mistakes it made and the internal strife within its ranks that has hit it so badly in its stronghold? The PTI’s provincial leadership has maintained in its report to the prime minister that the party rules were not violated in the distribution of tickets, which goes out to show that the party’s top cadre in the KP is hell bent on hoodwinking the public and even their own prime minister about the facts.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, though, was reportedly livid as he got wind of the meritless distribution of party tickets, much before the provincial government actually shared its report with him.

As a result, on Dec. 24, few days after the drubbing in KP local elections, the Prime Minister dissolved all the sub-organisations of his party and its parliamentarian boards. “All the members have been removed from their posts, including the chief organisers,” said Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in a briefing.

A prime example of how the rules were violated in distribution of tickets was that of PTI’s mayoral candidate in Peshawar Rizwan Bangash. Though Governor Shah Farman was the main figure behind awarding party tickets to candidates in the provincial capital, the Abu Dhabi-based businessman Rizwan is said to have got the ticket on the recommendation of provincial ministers Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Bangash along with MPA Fazle Ilahi.

It was due to this ‘foul’ selection of candidates that apparently resulted in loss of support from loyal party workers, resulting in a thumping victory of JUI-F candidate Zubair Ali, who secured 12,000 more votes that his PTI rival. Apparently, most PTI party workers had never heard of or knew their main candidate Rizwan Bangash in Peshawar and it remains a mystery as to why and how he was propelled to such a vital position of mayoral candidate in the KP Capital.

Similarly, the tehsil chairman seats in Governor Shah Farman’s home constituency Badaber and Mathra were lost because PTI legislators MNA Nasir Musazai and MNA Noor Alam Khan supported the opponent candidates in both constituencies respectively. In fact, another PTI MNA, Mehmood Jan had publicly blamed Noor Alam for supporting the JUI-F candidate against the party candidate, who is a brother of the former. Furthermore, the PTI candidate selected by Shah Farman lost the contest to JUI-F candidate in Pushtakhara tehsil as well.

It also merits mentioning here that the PTI candidates had full support of at least the provincial ministers in the provincial capital. However, Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Kamran Bangash and Mehmood Jan all failed to make any impact. Similarly, the party didn’t perform any better in Khyber Tribal district despite the eff orts of federal minister for religious affairs Noorul Haq Qadri.

Former ANP stronghold Charsadda, too, was clinched by JUI-F, from under the PTI’s feet, literally. The situation was similar to Peshawar as the PTI candidates lost two seats to JUI-F while the third seat was won by an independent candidate. It is alleged that party tickets were awarded to ill-reputed candidates who had no support of the party workers, including the local MPAs who allegedly backed the rival candidates.

Out of the fi ve tehsil seats in Mardan, JUI-F won three while the ANP bagged victories on the remaining two slots. Disgruntled PTI workers in Mardan blamed the party’s zero-score in district on provincial minister Muhammad Atif Khan, alleging that he did not consult with party workers while awarding tickets to lesser known and weak candidates for the local bodies’ elections.

The ANP won the metropolitan mayoral seat as Himayatullah Mayar won the mayorship of Mardan for a third time. Mayar’s narrow lead was challenged by the runner-up JUI-F candidate but the results remained intact despite a recount. Another key loss for PTI in Mardan was the defeat of its candidate Zarshad Khan who secured third position as JUI-F’s Mufti Hammadullah Yousafzai, who was contesting for the fi rst time won the tehsil chairmanship with a margin of over 12,000 votes. A video of the PTI’s MPA Malak Shaukat earlier had gone viral on social media days before the election in which he was seen cursing and abusing party workers who showed no interest in even proposing candidates for the local elections in his PK-48 provincial assembly constituency.

Mufti Hammadullah argued that his party’s brilliant performance in all districts was due to a combined effort under the leadership of Maulana Fazalur Rahman against the “incompetent government.”

“The ruling party had countless internal differences and power struggles. Their representatives continuously used the religion card while at the same side their federal and provincial level policies were all against Islam and Islam-loving people of Pakistan which proved as a gelling factor for our workers in putting serious efforts in elections,” Hammadullah told Bol News.

The Swabi district, another PTI stronghold, also performed miserably despite the eff orts of Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser and the infl uential Tarakai family. Asad Qaiser’s cousin won his tehsil chairman’s seat but the party lost all the remaining three seats. Buland Iqabl, an uncle of KP Education Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, also lost despite aggressive campaigns earlier to promote him as the most suitable candidate. Generally, the PTI workers in Swabi were unhappy with the distribution of party tickets on the recommendation of Asad Qaiser and Shahram Tarakai. One PTI senior worker in Swabi argued that many party workers were not happy with the hold of Asad Qaiser and the Tarakai family over politics in the district. Shahram Tarakai’s father is an MNA, one of his uncles’ is an MPA while another is a senator. Similarly, Asad Qaiser’s brother is also an MPA in KP assembly.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) won two of the three tehsil seats in Haripur while an independent candidate won the remaining third seat. But the influential Ayub brothers couldn’t deliver results in the district after awarding tickets to candidates of their choice.

Going South, the ticket distribution and internal power struggle cost PTI heavily in the Kohat district. Dedicated PTI leader Shafi Jan was left with no choice except to contest as an independent candidate after the party took back the ticket from him and awarded it to an unknown candidate Salman Shinwari.

Shafi Jan secured almost 27,000 votes and came only 8,000 votes short of JUIF’s Sher Zaman while PTI’s candidate was able to get just over 15,000 voted.

For the PTI, things didn’t work out in either Hangu, Karak, Lakki Marwat, Bannu and Tank. An uncle of the PTI MNA Shahid Khattak received a party ticket in Hangu but he only came second to the JUI-F candidate. Although offi cial results from Lakki Marwat and the JUI-F strong hold Bannu are still awaited, the PTI did manage to win at least one seat in the unoffi cial results. Two seats were clinched by the JUI-F, partially thanks to the PTI MPA who did not support his party’s candidates. The remaining seat went to an independent candidate Kamal Shah. Voters in another JUI-F stronghold Tank gave both seats to the religious party as the PTI candidates selected by Ali Amin did not get the required support of the party voters.

Interestingly in Lakki Marwat, the reason behind the PTI’s loss in all four tehsils was solely the diff erences between party leaders. It is understood that Federal Minister for Kashmir Aff airs, Ali Amin Gandapur and former provincial health minister Dr Hisham Inamullah had developed serious differences as the latter felt completely ignored in the ticket distribution process. The infl uential political figure had allegedly backed three independent candidates along with the mighty Saifullah family. All three candidates have won their seats in the unoffi cial results. It is believed that party well-wishers had reported the meddling of Gandapur in the district to the party’s higher leadership beforehand and had warned them about the negative impact it could have on the results.

In Dera Ismail Khan, the southernmost district of KP tickets were distributed among candidates by Ali Amin Gandapur. The elections for metropolitan mayor, on which Ali Amin’s brother Omar Amin Gandapur was contesting, were postponed after the killing of the ANP candidate. The PTI candidate Aaraiz Gandapur, who is the brother of PTI MPA Aghaz Gandapur, secured the party’s only victory on one of the tehsil seats out of the remaining fi ve. The JUI-F clinched two seats, while the JI and the PPP won on each of the remaining two seats.

Meanwhile, polling was held in the three tribal districts — Bajaur, Mohmand and Khyber. However, things weren’t much diff erent there either as the PTI faced similar issues of wrong candidature. It is signifi cant to note that the PTI candidates in Bajaur did not get any support from their party MNAs. Two PTI legislators, MNA Gul Dad Khan and his MPA brother both alleged that MNA Gul Zafar had supported the opponent who was an independent candidate.

It was pretty much the same story in Mohmand Tribal District where unpopular PTI candidates were fi elded and they lost. The ruling party won just one tehsil chairman seat as Naveed Ahmad, brother of PTI MPA Ayesha Bibi, came out the winner. However, the other two tehsil seats went to JUI-F.

Federal Minister Noorul Haq Qadri, and MNA Iqbal Afridi too could not influence a victory for PTI candidates in Khyber Tribal District. Of the three tehsil seats, the local Tehrik-e-Islahaat party of philanthropist Al Haaj Shah G Gul Afridi won two seats in the unoffi cial results while JUI-F candidate won the Bara tehsil. After his defeat, PTI candidate Abdul Ghani Afridi in Bara alleged that the two PTI parliamentarians from Bara did not support his campaign. Instead, they allowed a brother and nephew to contest independently in the same constituency.

The only places where the PTI performed well are Buner district and Nowshera, where it won two out of the three chairman seats, including Federal Minister for Defense Pervez Khattak’s son Muhammad Ishaq Khattak. Buner, where CM Mahmood Khan had distributed the party tickets, secured four wins out of the five tehsil chairman seats.

Some PTI circles are claiming that disheartened by the results, the Prime Minister might bring some serious changes in the provincial government before the second phase of the local government elections, which are to be held in January 2022, in the remaining 18 districts of KP.