RED ZONE FILES Why did Hafeez Shaikh lose.

Byline: Fahd Husain

Upsets always have backstories. Yousuf Raza Gilani's 'surprise' vanquishing of PTI's finance minister Hafeez Shaikh in the Senate election on the Islamabad seat on Wednesday is no exception. Here are some 'known unknowns', and 'unknown knowns':

The divide between elected and non-elected people in the PTI was deeper than imagined. There was genuine grievance in the rank and file about the importance that Prime Minister Imran Khan was giving to unelected advisers. The backlash was one reason why key advisers like Babar Awan, Barrister Shehzad Akbar and a few other hopefuls were not given senate tickets. Hafeez Shaikh, as per party insiders, was not a popular candidate.

Many PTI and coalition MNAs had been feeling neglected for a long time. This neglect was manifesting itself in the following: (a) Their basic constituency work was suffering because they had no one to turn to get things done; (2) Key cabinet ministers were difficult to access and the non-elected ones could not relate well to the compulsions of constituency politics; (3) After the departure of Jahangir Tareen, there was no one single person who could 'manage' them, throw his weight around even in provincial governments to get stuff done for these MNAs and generally act as a bridge between them and the Prime Minister's Office; (4) The prime minister hardly ever came to the parliament to spend time with the MNAs, listen to their grievances and facilitate them; (5) As a result of all these factors, many were primed to express their frustration through their vote.

In the last two days when the prime minister spent dedicated time in the parliament meeting his MNAs, a new narrative was subtly pushed by the government onto their own rank and file. Sources confide that some senior PTI people dropped broad hints to the MNAs that if they did not 'behave', the leader always had the option of packing off the assembly and calling fresh elections. Some MNAs did not take this well.

PTI leadership had been struggling with its political management for a while now and there were red lights flashing inside the party. In the early days, the party leadership had 'outsourced' much of this political management to powerful quarters. Left to its own, PTI could not have saved Senate chairman Sadiq Sanjrani from the vote of no confidence. This time, too, there was a general sense of relief in the party ranks that Hafeez Shaikh's election would also be managed accordingly - more so...