Dominantly inhabited by the Pakhtuns and mainly rural, the nature of politics of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is very complex and complicated due to a number of reasons. The political trends of the province has been deeply influenced by the local, regional and international dynamics such as geographical location, issues of bad governance, the emergence of militant Islamists under an international agenda and the Afghan civil war in 1990's.
Recently War on Terror have played key role in shaping the political contours by expanding the battle from Afghanistan to the tribal areas and then to the settled district of the province. Dominated by moderate political forces such as Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Qaumi Wattan Party (QWP) however well competed by rightist political parties such as Pakistan Muslim League (PML), Jamat-i-Islami Pakistan (JIP) and Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) at various occasions, politics in the province witnessed stark variance in the three elections of 2002, 2008 and 2013.
The victory of Muttahida Majils-e-Amal (MMA) in the 2002 election has raised fears that rightists might take over power through the ballot box and push the moderates to corner for their failure in devising workable strategies to eradicate the menace of terrorism. The ANP victory in the 2008 elections was an indication of the people for their strong anti-militancy approach and a desire for its solution. The 2013 election was to look into the solution of the entire crisis with a changing dynamic in electoral politics.
The rising popularity of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) before the May 2013 elections was considered to be a third option by most of the political analysts. In the pre-elections scenario the popularity graph of PTI has come down due to some of the local stalwart's withdrawal from the party and also outmanoeuvred by PPP led government and PML (N) led opposition parties by reunifying the diverse forces across the political landscape in support of democracy in the wake of Tahir-ul-Qadri protest and eventual Long March with hundreds of his followers on January 14, 2013. As the political situation is complex and extremely fluid in the province, yet two factors played decisive role in the 2013 elections.
First was to formulate a robust strategy to combat violence and terrorism and the second was to deliver to the masses especially restoring peace and security, equity and employment, solution of energy crisis, better education and health services and price control of the commodities of daily use. Given the disarray among the religio-poltical parties and the failure of the nationalists in providing tangible solutions of some of the major issues, PTI successfully capitalized on their breakdown for maximizing their chances of electoral success.
The failures of the ANP-PPP government in providing tangible policy choices on terrorism, energy crisis and economic down-flow increased the wariness of the masses towards them. The outcome of the elections has again demonstrated the changing dynamics of the politics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. PTI received the largest provincial assembly seats and formed a coalition government with Qaumi Wattan Party (QWP) Jamat-e-Islami Pakistan (JIP) and a little known Awami Jamhori Ittehad Pakistan (AJI).
Imran Khan maximized his chance by using his Pakhtun card with the Pakhtuns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and projected himself as an honest and credible leader on the basis of his previous record as a delivering social worker and successful cricketer. In his electioneering campaign he talked about complete overhauling of the political system and eradicating corruption within 90 days.
PTI claimed to snatch Pakistan from those who have successively subverted national development and almost destroyed the country for the sake of their own personal interests, greed and subservience to external interests. People in the country in general and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA particularly have been targeted by the terrorists, continues bomb blasts and drone strikes. Under these circumstances PTI promised to provide security to the ordinary citizens so that terrorists could not be able to melt into the population and find shelter there.
The people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were looking forward for a messiah to get them out of the unresolved mess.
It called for the abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) and the people of FATA will be given in sense of ownership in Pakistan with "no to drone policy". By promising a counter-militancy strategy and ending the narratives of Jihad, the PTI provided to the people a ray of hopes which the other mainstream parties failed to formulate. It pledged to balance the pressure of American policies vis-à-vis Pakistan and getting the country out of the mess of terrorism. In the pre-election scenario at one time it was sidelined by other partied on a number of occasions.
His inconsequential long march against Drone strikes up to Tank, desertion of political leader such as Khwaja Muhammad Khan Hoti and ambivalent response to the Long March of Tahir-ul-Qadri were some of the vents which greatly tarnished PTI image of a potential challenger to the PPP and PML (N). Imran Khan was also being outwitted by Nawaz Sharif who held a meeting of the political parties in the wake of the march has got the steam out of the party.
At that time a political analyst Muhammad Waseem pointed out that this is a challenge for the PTI Chairman Imran Khan who was outsmarted first by Tahir-ul-Qadri by taking out the Long March and then by Nawaz Sharif by holding a meeting of the political parties in the wake of the March.
But PTI, with a workable political agenda resurfaced and proved that it can still have a chance to show better results in the elections if it reaches out to the youth and galvanize them as much as possible. Although PTI was considered as a swing factor by most of other political leader in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it stayed consistent to win the favour of the people especially of the youth who comprise huge proportion of the population. It won the support of the youth by projecting the party platform an appropriate forum for discussing their issues and concerns.
Unlike the traditional approaches of other political parties in which the reign of power were largely in the hands of conservative and closed elder circle, the PTI projected itself a party with a new vision and bright future for the youth. It addressed, with a new perspective, every problem for instance energy crisis, war on terror, corruption, education, development of national infrastructure etc. So it was a wake call for ANP and PPP leadership to do some soul searching and strengthen the implementation processes of its policies and to do the proper projection of its achievements in education, employment, law and order and new energy projects.
However, the ANP confused policy with regard to terrorism and Taliban transformed the nature of the war to that of Taliban verses Pakhtun nationalism. At the end the people of the province turned towards PTI in the elections for the resolution of their long-standing issues which the nationalists failed to properly address in their 5 year tenure.
