Charsadda’s choices

Like other major cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) also faced defeat in the recently held local government (LG) elections in Charsadda district.  It is, however, not the first time that people of the district changed their political choices over a period of time.

The district has been considered a stronghold of both the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F). Aftab Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) has also been getting one or two seats in the national and provincial legislatures from the district in a rather consistent manner.

In the 1988 general election, Khan Abdul Wali Khan – the ANP’s then chief and the political scion of its founder Bacha Khan – was elected to the National Assembly on the lone seat from the district – the district now has two seats in the National Assembly.

Wali Khan had defeated Ahsan Ullah Khan, a candidate of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI). At the election, the other constituent parties of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) – including the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the JUI-F – had not fielded any candidate against Khan.

Wali Khan, however, faced defeat in the battle for the assembly of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) – the previous name of the KP – assembly seat at the hands of Amir Khusro Khan. Aftab Khan Sherpao was elected to the NWFP Assembly on another seat from Charsadda and later became the provincial chief minister. Three ANP candidates had stood victorious at the rest of the seats from the district.

At the 1990 general election, JUI-F’s Maulana Hassan Jan defeated Wali Khan in the National Assembly contest by a wide margin. Of the five provincial assembly seats, the ANP managed to secure four while Sherpao was once again elected at one of the constituencies.

After being defeated by Hassan Jan, Wali Khan decided never to run in any election. He argued that if the people of his native constituency – which is also the birthplace of the ANP – did not trust him, he had no right to contest polls at some other constituency.

Wali Khan was so disheartened by this defeat that he practically retired from electoral politics and contented himself with becoming the symbolic chief of his party. After the arrest of Wali Khan, his wife Begum Naseem Wali Khan entered politics.

However, her decision to take part in active politics did not go down well in the extremely conservative society of the KP and senior leaders of her party and even her step-son Asfandyar Wali Khan resisted the move as they wanted to protect their women from political mudslinging.

Begum Naseem’s decision to lead the ANP damaged the reputation of the party which started becoming unpopular in the province.

However, her advisors were successful in keeping her in the decision-making position for a long time.

Later, in 1999 Asfandyar led a rebellion against his step-mother and was successful in convincing her to step down from politics as he himself got elected as the party’s president in 1999.

Entering the political arena in his youth during Ayub Khan’s rule, Asfandyar Wali Khan contested the 1990 general elections and was elected to the NWFP provincial assembly. Later in 1993, he won the National Assembly seat with a narrow margin of a few hundred votes from Charsadda.

The ANP also managed to bag four provincial assembly seats from the district – the fifth seat going to Sherpao.  In the 1997 general election, Asfandyar once again managed to get elected to the National Assembly; the ANP once again won four provincial assembly seats and Sherpao also retained his seat.

In the 2002 general election, JUI-F’s Maulana Gohar Shah – who was a joint candidate of religious parties’ alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) – defeated Asfandyar with a wide margin.

This defeat resulted in the resignation of the ANP leader for a brief time. However, he was soon re-elected as the unopposed party president in 2003.

Aftab Sherpao, who now had support of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), secured both the second NA seats from the district as well as a provincial assembly seat.

This time, the ANP lost ground and Sherpao’s son Sikander Khan Sherpao and an MMA candidate also won the NWFP Assembly seats. Sherpao also vacated his provincial assembly seat which was won again by MMA’s Sheikh Muhammad Idrees.

In the 2008 general election, Asfandyar Wali stood victorious at one of the National Assembly seats while Aftab Sherpao got elected from the second seat with a thin margin. Once again the ANP won four seats in the district with the fifth seat now going to Sikandar Sherpao.

In the 2013 general election, JUI-F’s Maulana Gohar Shah defeated not only Asfandyar Wali but also PTI’s Fazal Muhammad Khan. The second NA seat was once again won by Sherpao who defeated a JUI-F’s candidate.

This time the ANP – which had formed the provincial government after the 2008 election – was wiped out in the entire district with the five K-P Assembly seats in the province divided among Sherpao’s QWP and the JUI-F candidates.

In 2018 general election, PTI’s Fazal Muhammad Khan defeated Asfandyar Wali in the contest for a National Assembly seat while another PTI’s candidate got elected at the second NA seat by defeating the JUI-F’s Zafar Ali Khan with a very thin margin.

The ANP could secure only one provincial assembly seat while all the other four seats were won by the PTI’s candidate. However, in the first phase of the LG polls in the KP – held on December 20 – the JUI-F’s Maulana Abdul Rauf Shakir defeated the PTI’s candidate.

In the three tehsil of the district, the JUI-F bagged a total of 124,993 votes followed by the ANP with 62,117 votes and the PTI with 53,048 votes. The JUI-F has received 9,827 more votes than the ANP and the PTI put together.

According to some analysts, if the JUI-F manages to resolve its internal differences and if it fields seasoned politicians in the next general election slated for July 2023 it can wipe out the PTI from the province apparently for good.