Partly Facetious: Our Sarah Palin is Maryam Nawaz?

"The Khan and Gill the Fish..."

"Excuse me! Are you out of your mind - taking the name of the Bestower and Bestowed in the same breath!"

"But isn't that the norm! ..."

"Stop idiot! Don't do it again."

"Anyway The Khan went to Lahore to ask the powers that be there why the party lost in the cantonment board elections to the Tea party."

"Tea party as in the US which represents right of the right wing and Sarah Palin, a vacuous but attractive vice presidential candidate..."

"The year the Republicans lost the elections."

"Yes our Sarah Palin is Maryam Nawaz who is talking credit for the party's performance but between you and me I reckon the fault lines are in The Khan's party."

"He still ain't getting rid of The Buzz."

"No my theory does not lay the blame on The Buzz."

"Inflation..."

"It probably played a role but see my theory is kinda different. Who voted for The Khan in overwhelming numbers in 2018?"

"Well, based on those who came day after day to hear The Khan speak in D Chowk in 2014 I would say women, middle class women, and youth, the uneducated youth."

"Precisely, so The Khan alienated these women by his comments on rape and women's clothes and the youth are waiting for jobs but there are none three years into the Khan's tenure..."

"So you reckon he lost that vote?"

"Yes and his support for religious education and Madinah ki Riyasat has not attracted supporters from religious parties, I mean they are kinda diehard supporters..."

"OK, but the Ehsaas programme and the Panahgahs and the mental institutions and..."

"Speaking of the latter I mentioned Gill the Fish cause he mobilized the media to cover the visit of Imran Khan's spouse..."

"Hmm, or else we wouldn't have known right."

"Anyway you remember Zardari sahib before the 2013 elections was counting the votes based on the Benazir Income Support Programme and he never got those votes. The Khan should take a lesson from that: the beneficiaries of his Ehsaas programme may not vote for him."

"So what does he need to win the elections?"

"A strong economy, not simply talk of a strong economy having been achieved because each Pakistani who goes to the market to buy stuff needs to have a feel good factor from one week to the next and that has been missing for three long years."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021