Narratives for the 2018 elections

If you are a politician, you can see the next elections staring you right in the face. It is time for political parties to draw their battle lines and get their arsenal ready. By now, we also have some fair idea of the strength and weaknesses of their major battlefield weapon their narratives and how these weapons are serving them in the prelude to the 2018 elections.

Soon after the 2008 elections, the PML-N dusted and put to use its old narrative of the clean Muslim League versus the corrupt Peoples Party. With Benazir gone and Asif Ali Zardari at the helm of affairs, the party was able to successfully link each and every failure of the PPP government to its “unbridled corruption”. Unfortunately, this is a narrative that can be sustained only in opposition. Once in government, the PML-N had to face a more virulent version of the narrative, which can be summed up as: the clean Imran Khan versus the corrupt Pakistan.

Though Imran Khan had started his politics with this narrative, he had not been able to find many customers during the first 15 years of his political career. Political activities and polls before the 2013 elections showed that his popularity had suddenly spiked in an environment where a huge market for the anti-corruption narrative had been created.

We know that Imran Khan’s single-track mind is his greatest asset and his biggest liability. During the last four years, he has focused more and more on this narrative, to the exclusion of everything else. He did succeed in creating a great inconvenience for the government and brought it to the verge of collapse by fostering an enabling environment for the umpire to raise his finger.

Knowing full well that remaining cornered puts a ruling party at a huge disadvantage, the PML-N has worked on a new narrative of a pro-development PML-N versus an anti-development PTI. As Pakistan emerges out of a decade of economic stagnation and insecurity created by terrorism, this is a narrative that does strike a chord. With people keen on getting good news, this narrative appears to be a rather clever move that not only changes the subject but also infuses positive energy and an element of celebration into the political arena.

It is not hard to argue against the limited economic achievements of the PML-N government in an extremely conducive environment, but we are not talking economy but politics and narratives.

Rather than using rhetoric alone, the PML-N’s strategy focuses on creating visuals display of the fast-paced development through events, mainly focusing on laying foundations stones and inaugurating projects. The harvest time has started for projects that were started at the early stage of this government’s tenure and there is no dearth of new project thanks to CPEC.

This has already forced the PTI to divert its attention away from its own narrative to counter the PML-N’s narrative. On more than one occasion, Imran Khan has urged the Supreme Court to keep Nawaz Sharif engaged because “when he gets a respite, he starts cutting ribbons”. A week ago, Imran Khan stated that constructing bridges and roads could not “alone bring a change in societies.”

Bridges, roads and motorways are not hard to defend, or even to celebrate, in an infrastructure starved country. The prime minister answered the objection while inaugurating a section of the Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway. He argued that in order to understand the importance of roads and motorways, it was necessary to have a close relationship with the people of Pakistan. He said: “If there will be roads, then there will be hospitals. If we have roads, we will have schools. Roads are very necessary and that is why in order to have progress, a country must build roads.” The PM cleverly linked Imran Khan’s objections to his elitism: “Those travelling in helicopters and (chartered) airplanes should also step down and witness these roads for themselves”.

The Sharifs are hardware men. They know how to build hardware and how to sell it to consumers in this case the people of Pakistan. It is hard to find fault with the logic of building new infrastructure. As a World Bank report puts it, infrastructure represents the “wheels” of economic activity. Transport is an input for every commodity. Users demand infrastructure services not only for direct consumption but also for raising their productivity by, for instance, reducing the time and effort needed to secure safe water, to bring crops to market, or to commute to work.

However, good infrastructure needs to be built not only for transport but also for power, water, sanitation, telecommunications, and irrigation. In diverse societies, infrastructure projects can also create huge disparities by developing some geographical areas, classes and ethnicities at the cost of others. It can be argued that the Sharifs’ ideas of infrastructure are populist, not based on need but patronage, and benefit those areas and classes that are important or dear to the party and its bosses.

But it is a battle of narratives and the PML-N appears to be winning it hands down. According to a recent survey conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI), Nawaz Sharif’s approval rating is 63 percent, while Imran Khan is trailing far behind with only 39 percent approval; Bilawal is not far behind him with 32 percent. No less than 64 percent people expressed their satisfaction over the performance of the federal government while the Punjab government won 79 percent approval.

This poll should worry the PTI because if we compare it to the IRI polls carried in the run up to the 2013 elections, it appears that the popularity of the PTI has dwindled while it needs to almost double its vote bank to win the next elections.

Where is the PPP and what is its narrative? Despite remaining on the wrong side of narratives created by its enemies, the PPP has not learnt the art of narrative formation and appears to have no strategy. The religious parties that were cheerleaders for the Taliban are also at a huge disadvantage and are left with nothing to sell. Anti-Americanism might have come to their rescue but they may not be able to sell it at a time when the state has distanced itself from the US and cannot be blamed of being a stooge to the superpower.

At the beginning of the tenure of the current government, Imran Khan had calculated that he had to pull down Nawaz Sharif because if the PM were allowed to complete his tenure, the PTI may not be able to win the next elections. This may turn out to be a self-fulfilled prophecy if the umpires in the Supreme Court fail to deliver what he so desperately wants and needs.

PS: The early hours of the morning are the most lucrative business time for policemen manning pickets all over the country. Do stop when you are asked to and keep some cash handy, particularly if you are accompanied with some female family member, colleague or friend. Popularity polls and satisfaction surveys may not reflect some harsh ground realities.

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan