Blow after blow dims re-election hopes of Pakistan’s ruling party

Islamabad (Reuters): Reeling from clashes with the judiciary and hobbled by media restrictions linked to the powerful military, Pakistan’s ruling party’s once-wide path to retaining power is narrowing ahead of a general election this summer.

In the past year, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has seen a prime minister - its founder Nawaz Sharif - and foreign minister both ousted by the courts, while its finance minister, charged with corruption, fled the country. On Sunday, a gunman shot and wounded its interior minister.

All of this comes before another court ruling due next month that could send Sharif to jail for 14 years over a corruption case he says is a “conspiracy” against him.

An alleged religious extremist has been arrested over the gun attack on Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal.

That appears unrelated to PML-N’s wider problems with the military and judiciary - both of whom deny pursuing a political agenda. But the assassination attempt adds to a growing list of woes afflicting a party that less than a year ago was deemed a shoo-in for another five-year term.

Such a series of body blows suggests the PML-N is unlikely to repeat its success at the 2013 election, which left it with a majority in the national assembly, with most analysts predicting a hung parliament that will usher in a coalition government.

“All these other issues that are thrown up just distract the party from doing what it needs to do in an election,” said Huma Yusuf, a columnist and Wilson Center Global Fellow. “It makes it an unequal playing field.”

PML-N’s main challenge is expected to come from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, led by cricket hero-turned-politician Imran Khan, who has promised a radical change for the poor if he is elected as premier.

Sharif, a three-time prime minister whose second term was cut short by a bloodless military coup in 1999, has cast the electoral campaign as a battle to protect Pakistan’s fragile democracy after a decade of uninterrupted civilian rule.

While no-one is suggesting the army wants to outright seize power again, PML-N insiders say Sharif’s relationship with the generals is in tatters and accuse shadowy military networks of working with the judiciary to weaken the party.