slamabad winters are like Pakistani politics – pleasantly warm around noon and chilly after sundown. When offices shut and employees head home, eateries and cafes start buzzing. Upscale restaurants and basic bistros come alive and turn into miniature debating chambers discussing every possible topic under the sun. Politics, however, beats them all.

Last Sunday evening, I sat in the Super Market square in F-6, sipping jaggery tea. Seated on the next table were six or seven young men, trying to drown each other’s reasoning in their dissection of the Shahbaz Sharif-led coalition administration. Whenever someone mustered the courage to make a positive remark, others sprang to shootdown the compliment with loud boos or counter analyses. The country, they said, had been turned into a “beggar state” by its power-hungry elite. “We are a nuclear state running on remittances, IMF loans and alms from a handful of Middle Eastern countries.”

Most of the comments were verbatim repeats of what is churned out daily in cacophonous TV talk shows – bloated bravado or hangdog statements. But a couple stood out for novelty. To collective laughter, one of the participants said that when spoken about Shahbaz Sharif, the acronym PM doesn’t mean a prime minister. “It means a ‘project manager’ running from pillar to post, trying to deliver an assigned outcome.” Another speaker said: “Nawaz Sharif has consistently picked generals who have booted him out.”

On paper, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has been the most successful political party recently, having held frequent prime ministerial stints since 1985. The reality, however, is not as rosy as it might seem. Today, the party is seriously challenged. There is a popular perception that it cannot last in government if the “establishmentarian” crutches are withdrawn. According to Dr Mohammad Waseem, the story of Pakistani politics is one of a persistent conflict between two elite groups – the state elite and the political elite. The former makes up the establishment and the latter represents the political parties and the parliament. These two elite groups “draw heavily” on two power centres, the middle class and the political class. The PML-N, apparently, has lost ground among both classes.

A diehard Leaguer can come up with a myriad excuses. However, the leadership cannot be absolved of the blame for its current weakness. From personal political growth under the establishment’s wings to willingness to be a pawn against Benazir Bhutto’s governments and from successive violations of merit in order to select ‘pliable’ military leaders to unnecessary attempts at locking horns with the powerful establishment, Nawaz Sharif pretty much cooked his own goose.

No doubt, history will remember him as initiator of many development projects that will continue to benefit successive generations of Pakistanis, but some of Nawaz Sharif’s political choices have been questionable. He is accused of distrusting sincere political companions; preferring family members for key slots; expansion of the family business empire through means that attracted widespread accusations of corruption; holding grudges; and nurturing sycophancy. The list is long but two mistakes can be described as cardinal: the first being his habit of attempting to overwhelm handpicked military chiefs and the second his inability to forge long-term political alliances with likeminded groups and expand his support base.

The PML-N has been primarily a representative of the urban moneyed and working classes. That is why the party’s political fortresses have been urban centres of central Punjab. Rural Punjab has always sided with the party in power. To expand its support base, the PML-N should have focused on Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh, and Peshawar and Hazara in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The party leadership should have had the courage to connect with the educated middle class, particularly the youth. It chose otherwise, and when it was challenged by the powerful establishment, it was soon reduced to being a party of the central Punjab.

Today, despite being in power, the party looks exhausted. Nawaz Sharif didn’t return from London to be a forlorn father working overtime to build his daughter’s political career. His party and comrades had revelled in his “fourth coming.” Definitely, premature. Party insiders say that his support for the younger Sharif is pure political necessity. “It protects us all from the wolf on the door.”

Backed by the establishment and support from the Pakistan Peoples Party as well as some smaller parties, the PML-N-led government can claim progress on many fronts. From economic indicators (stock exchange, the IMF programme, loan rollovers by China and Arab countries) and satisfactory regional and international interactions to an opposition whose resistance is aimed primarily at Rawalpindi not Islamabad, almost everything is going for the government.

However, the same cannot be said of public sentiment. The big picture may have been managed but the street is not buying the government narrative. Record-breaking bull-runs in the stock exchange and “satisfactory” foreign currency reserves are not doing anything for the common man. That had been the expectation from a PML-N government. Free laptop distribution, complimentary distribution of EV scooties for girl students, social media propaganda by paid “influencers” are mere cosmetic gestures. These are not winning the hearts and minds of the people.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said “when you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Nawaz Sharif’s campaign for civilian supremacy in politics and governance has been effectively hijacked by Imran Khan. His desire to be a prime minister the fourth time has been dashed by his younger brother. The House of Sharif appears divided. The father-daughter team appears to be working on future plans while for now Shahbaz is holding the fort for himself alone. The one good news for the PML-N is that Khan’s political team is far from political. His comrades appear to be looking towards Washington for a helpful tweet, sometime in January.

The writer is the resident editor of The News, Islamabad