An Old Warrior Still Leads the Pack

SIALKOT: In a sprawling home opposite the golden arches of McDonald’s, the man with the golden touch in this northern Punjab city is quietly and confidently preparing for electoral battle yet again.Khwaja Asif, the silver-haired PML-N impresario with the signature country drawl, has never lost an election in this wealthy, modern export hub with a politics rooted in the old ways of biradirism.In 2002, Asif, along with a running mate on a provincial assembly ticket, was the only PML-N candidate in the entire Gujranwala division to win a seat.

Pakistan News Reported:  In 2008, his fourth National Assembly victory on the trot, Asif won by a margin of 40,000 votes, more than twice the number secured by the PPP runner-up.This time round, Asif has also thrown his hat into the provincial assembly ring – sparking rumours that he may be eying the chief minister’s slot after the election. For all his success, though, Asif continues to deflect credit towards his boss, PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.“Sialkot is PML-N territory. There’s high literacy, low unemployment and the people are low to middle middle-class. They identify with Mian Sahib’s middle-class origins,” Asif explained.He continued: “Then there’s Mian Sahib’s pro-business policies. He finished the octroi tax, fixed the tax rates and as a result there’s massive, massive amounts of white money here. The business community has a relationship with him.”All is far from well in Sialkot today, however. Rolling blackouts have left the city without electricity for more hours a day than with. Lengthy queues of vehicles snake around the many CNG filling stations here, when there is any gas left to pump, that is.Chronic shutdowns at the some 6,000 small and medium enterprises that produce $1.5bn of exports a year has triggered mass layoffs and left owners complaining about the spiralling cost of business.And there is a growing vein of resentment against Asif’s aloof and autocratic style of politics. “People like N-League, but not necessarily Khwaja Asif,” said NaeemIqbal, a local journalist. “It won’t be so easy for N-League and Khwaja to win this time.”