Nawaz Sharif addresses supporters during an election rally in Murree, yesterday.
Lahore: The convoy slows. In front of the candidate’s vehicle, men dance. Rose petals are hurled from the rooftops. Motorbikes swarm. “Look, look who is coming,” supporters shout. A white tiger on top of a van yawns and stretches a paw. A small child and a 90-year-old party worker are hauled through the crowd to offer garlands.
“It’s a beautiful feeling to be loved,” says Maryam Sharif, leaning back in the seat of her luxury SUV three days into her first election campaign. “My shoulders hurt from waving six hours a day. I need to learn to wave wisely.”
Sharif’s constituency is in the heart of Lahore, the second biggest city of Pakistan. In two weeks, the nuclear power, so crucial to western strategy in the region and the fight against Islamist extremism worldwide, will hold a general election. It will be the first time in the 66 years since independence that one democratically elected civilian government will serve out its full term and be replaced by another.
Every day bombs kill three, four, a dozen. The last election, held in 2008, had been postponed after Benazir Bhutto, the two-time former prime minister, was assassinated by extremists at a rally. Despite continuing violence, authorities say these polls will be held on time.
Maryam Sharif is not actually standing herself. She is canvassing on behalf of the candidate in National Assembly Constituency 120. This is Nawaz Sharif, president of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML-N, and the man who polls predict is likely to become prime minister for the third time when the votes are counted. He was first elected from this constituency in 1985 at the start of his political career. Maryam is his daughter.
“I didn’t know what to expect but the response is massive. Every household is showering us with petals, throwing garlands. It’s so invigorating. I didn’t know the love for Nawaz Sharif until I went into the field campaigning,” she says. In Lahore, capital of Punjab province, the Sharifs are on home turf. The family live on a sprawling estate south of the city. At elections in 2008 they swept the city itself and won control, too, of Punjab province, the richest and most influential part of Pakistan. Maryam’s uncle, Shahbaz, was chief minister of Lahore until elections were called last month.
“It’s in the genes but it’s not a family affair,” Maryam, 39, says quickly.
Nawaz Sharif has long inspired suspicion overseas and the continued popularity of the 63-year-old business magnate has perplexed many.
But, analysts say, the very factors that jar with western diplomats are those that guarantee support among a large number of Pakistanis. Most recent polls say that Sharif’s PML-N will win 41pc of the votes in the forthcoming election. The party’s own predictions are more conservative but still point to a significant victory.
At the party’s newly refurbished campaign headquarters in Lahore’s plush suburb of Model Town, rows of young workers sit at screens monitoring live TV broadcasts and social media. They are focused not on the national news channels followed largely by the elite, still less the English-language press or Twitter, but on the hugely popular local channels and Urdu language publications.
Campaign workers say they believe 20pc of the 85 million who can vote in two weeks are undecided. Of the core PML-N vote, only a sixth are in the big cities, they say. Most are in medium-sized towns unknown in the west. And Nawaz Sharif’s fortune is seen as something to aspire to, not criticise.
Maryam Sharif’s entry into politics — and talk of her as a potential future leader — also counters another image problem: that the party is too male.
“When you see the leader’s daughter come forward then that shows the open mindset of the leadership allowing space for women in senior positions,” said Anusha Rehman, a former PML parliamentarian and key official.
Guardian News
