From both the organisational and political standpoints, Pakistan Muslim League-N is in a bind. Beyond any shadow of doubt, Nawaz Sharif's PML-N is in deep trouble. Its performance during the recent elections to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) assembly, discounting the alleged ballot rigging, has been disappointing.
Earlier, the PML-N lost out to the PPP in a number of by-elections in its own home turf, Punjab, which is reflective of the fragility of the party structure and decline of support at the grass-root level and the weakening of the party's appeal within its constituencies. Punjab, today is in total chaos, marred by financial indiscipline, breakdown of law and order and administrative mismanagement under an inept, incompetent, directionless and purposeless dispensation.
It is difficult to fathom the mindset of Nawaz Sharif. Let us go back to the year 2008. The Sharif brothers' return to Pakistan and immediately embracing the PPP as its most ardent supporters. PPP's Benazir is assassinated and Nawaz Sharif makes a daft announcement of his party's boycott of the February 2008 national elections, only to be persuaded by a manipulative Asif Zardari to take back his ill-conceived decision. Nawaz Sharif then gleefully joins the PPP as its coalition partner. The honeymoon with PPP lasts a few months and Nawaz Sharif's directionless PML-N pulls out to assume the role of a most friendly opposition after realising that they had been repeatedly taken for ride by a manipulative, untrustworthy and a most crooked adversary.
As things moved along, Nawaz Sharif daftly went into confrontation with just about every political party including the powerful establishment. Despite repeated pleas and offers to join hands with the various factions of the Muslim League and the rest to form a unified and effective opposition, Nawaz spurns the unification offer with PML-Q and decides to go solo. His solo flight into Pakistan's politics has made him a political pariah, thus isolating his party.
PML-N has little or no representation or worthwhile presence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The party simply does not exist in the second largest province of the country, Sindh. In the next elections, PML-N is likely to be completely routed in Sindh where it has made no efforts to organise itself at the grass-root level and the elections are less than two years away. In Sindh, the lethargic PML-N does not have a single office bearer, worth his or her name. The only two individuals who can be identified as being PML-N's organisers and representatives in Sindh are Ghous Ali Shah and Saleem Zia, the duo, lacking in energy, clout, or political attributes and ability to organise the party. The other PML-N associate is the 'sidelined' ex-governor of Sindh, Mamnoon Hussain, who is an honest and decent individual and that is where his credentials stop, for he is neither a public figure nor an active politician, who can lead and organise an electoral blitz in Karachi or anywhere else in Sindh. As a last resort, Nawaz Sharif would probably open the PML-N's door to the likes of Arbab Ghulam Rahim or Imtiaz Shaikh and draw consolation from the support of the Mehars of Ghotki.
In a nutshell, because of the self-centred, egoistic, daft, non-pragmatic and waft policies of Mian Saheb, coupled with his ruling party's most pathetic and abjectly dismal performance in Punjab, the PML-N now stands completely isolated as only a central Punjab-centric regional political party. Even in PML-N's backyard, the Seraiki belt, the party is unlikely to make any noticeable gains in the forthcoming national elections.
Nawaz Sharif is obsessed with the self-inflicted debacle and traumatic events of the year 1999.He seems to be suffering from an acute case of 'Musharraf phobia'. Nawaz Sharif thus has become a prisoner of time and seems to be stuck in a time tunnel, going back to the year 1999, when he engineered his own ouster.
He is surrounded not by intelligent advisors and party colleagues. They all seem to be over-awed by the wealth and glitter of the Sharif family and conduct themselves as a subservient sidekicks and thus toe Nawaz Sharif's line. PML-N's opposition leader in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar is an 'all talk - no action' guy who makes the same oft-repeated and hackneyed statements. The other star performers of PML-N are Rana Sanaullah, Khawaja Asif and lead spokesperson Siddiqul Farooq.
It is time the dedicated workers of the PML-N to take charge of the party and its unify all factions of the fragmented Muslim League to form a potent, credible, effective political force and worthy Opposition. Who knows this might trigger a domino effect on the workers of other political parties, resulting in the demise of the self-serving dynastical politicians and their hold on the politics of the country.