From Fahd Hussain's
Article
A Nawaz conviction is likely. Even he expects he will be found guilty. Two scenarios present themselves thus; either Nawaz goes to jail and his daughter does not, or both end up behind bars. In the first scenario, Maryam will then automatically become the campaigner-in-chief for the party along with Shehbaz. If she too is jailed, Shehbaz will be the lead campaigner, assisted of course by the second line of leadership.
In either case, the party feels its narrative will be turbo-charged once Nawaz is jailed. But wait. Which narrative?
At this point, the party cannot have a Nawaz narrative and a Shehbaz narrative. What happens then? If the party wants to play the victim card, it will lean into the Nawaz narrative — and Maryam (if she’s not in jail) will be well placed to light up the campaign trail with this hardened, no-holds-barred narrative. But if such an eventuality were to arise, what happens to the Shehbaz school of thought? What happens to the delicately built bridges and an inclusive approach aimed at mending things instead of smashing them further? And what happens to the electables still waiting around in the party in the hope that Shehbaz would avoid the dreaded collision?
If Nawaz and Maryam are both in jail, their school of thought would insist the party has no option but to exploit the situation by going full extreme on the victim card by blaming and shaming the system. Shehbaz would then be in a really tight spot — and so would the party.
And if this wasn’t complicated enough, consider the following:
If the victim card does indeed work; and if the electorate does begin to respond; and if the electables within the party do calculate that the ‘political martyrdom’ narrative is paying dividends; and if Punjab refuses to abandon the Sharif ticket; and if the party does look in a solid position to win against all these odds — then will the Establishment be okay with the PML-N returning to power at the Centre or in Punjab or in both? And if not, then what?
Shehbaz is walking a tight rope. He can either save the day for his family and his party, or be devoured by the avalanche that is rumbling across the other side of his brother’s conviction.
At some point this May, Nawaz will need to decide on the big questions. At some point this May, Shehbaz will need to calculate the prospects of his approach paying dividends. At some point this May, the Nawaz School and the Shehbaz School will need to figure out if it is even possible to amalgamate the two narratives into one. At some point this May it will need to be established if such an amalgamation even lies within the realm of possibility. And at some point this May, the PML-N will need to decide what its core is, who its core is and what does this core stand for?
Once the caretakers are in and the party is out of the corridors of power, it will face the full heat of the pressure being exerted from all sides. Before it is exposed to these extreme temperatures, it needs to figure out the contradictions within itself and take the necessary decisions.
And the time for these decisions is May. Tick tock tick tock.