The power game

The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), an opposition alliance that was formed to topple the hybrid regime that currently rules the country, is scheduled to hold a public gathering in the city of Multan, Punjab, on Monday.

Until last month, the PDM had been successfully putting pressure on the government led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the military establishment, but a break of almost four weeks took the momentum away.

First, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, went to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) for the Legislative Assembly election campaign, and then Maryam Nawaz, the vice-president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) followed suit.

However, the campaigning of both Maryam and Bilawal had little effect on the GB elections as the ruling PTI emerged with the largest number of votes, and with the help of independent candidates is forming a government there.

Breaking the momentum of the PDM and wasting time on a futile attempt to win seats in the GB legislature not only dented the opposition's chances of bringing the PTI government down, but it also gave a much-needed breather to the regime and its backers.

Then came the second wave of Covid-19, and it is now becoming more lethal with every passing day. Hospitals are almost full of patients suffering from the disease, and educational institutions have been closed down because of the second wave.

In fact, Bilawal Bhutto recently tested positive for Covid-19, and it seems that the pandemic is working in favor of the ruling party. Now the opposition, which at the time of the first wave of Covid-19 in Pakistan was criticizing the government for mismanagement of the pandemic and was pressuring it to impose a lockdown, is doing the opposite.

It is the opposition now that despite knowing that the surge in the number of Covid-19 patients is costing lives is not interested in delaying public gatherings. Such gatherings in a society that hardly follows any of the standard operating procedures (SOP) defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) is only increasing the number of patients.

So it is the opposition now that is playing politics in the midst of a global pandemic while the PTI government is benefiting from the pandemic as it can use it to ban opposition rallies.

Perhaps the PDM was

in a much better position when Nawaz Sharif through his hard-hitting speeches was exposing the bigwigs of the establishment for rigging the political discourse. At that juncture, all the PDM needed was to continue is public gatherings and give Sharif the stage to hit the government and its backers hard.

However, the opportunity was missed as the PPP was not interested in locking horns with the establishment, whereas Maulana Fazal-urRehman, president of Jamiat Ulemae-Islam (F), who was betrayed by the PPP and PML-N last year, was of two minds regarding whether to put his foot on the accelerator or not.

So the space created by Sharif for his PML-N and other opposition parties has been lost in the GB election and the PDM needs to think about what led the two mainstream parties PML-N and PPP to fight an electoral battle in GB that was absolutely irrelevant, as historically in the government there is always formed by the party ruling in the center.

Now after losing time and momentum, the PDM is not only pitted against PTI and its backers but the pandemic as well. The new promotions in the military mean that the current bigwigs of the establishment blamed by Sharif for rigging the political discourse are regaining the space they had lost on the power chessboard.

The other factor working against the PDM is that it only has until January to topple the current regime, as Senate elections are scheduled for March. If the PDM, which is supposed to stage a long march against the government in January, is not able to dislodge PTI and its backers until the end of January, it will be game over, as February will be spent by the politicians to make and break alliances or to buy tickets for the new election of the Senate.

So Imran Khan sitting in the Prime Minister's Office knows that if he somehow survives until the end of January, it will be over for the PDM.

The PDM knows that if it fails to send Khan packing it will have to wait until 2022 for the next general elections. The establishment will be in a good position even if the PDM can assert the pressure again to offer Punjab as a consolation to PML-N and award a few perks in the coming Senate election to Fazal.