The News on Sunday: A year and a half after the general elections in the country, two months after the dharna in Islamabad, and now big rallies across the country, how would you define the PTI effect?

Umair Javed: The effect can be categorised into two separate levels -- the institutional effect has been to recalibrate the balance of power between the military and the government in favour of the former. This does not mean that the two are at loggerheads or the relationship has broken down. It simply means the military has greater moral authority over the PML-N government because of its very public role in September.

The second is the societal effect, which has been to delegitimise the election in the eyes of casual observers and urban voters, especially in Punjab. There is also greater impatience now with the placid democratic experiment, which is why we see so many people baying for Nawaz’s resignation.

TNS: In August, while commenting on the politics of the PML-N and PTI, you wrote, "The difference between the two parties -- despite their best efforts at distinguishing themselves from the other -- boils down to a choice between two groups of urban Punjabi politicians, led by two personalities, each struggling for control of an oversized province." But, with the huge public meetings (particularly in Lahore, the Sharif stronghold), you think the power bases are shifting? Is the game heating up in Punjab?

UJ: There is and always will be space for an opposition party in Punjab. Years of political fragmentation under military regimes means that there are far too many politicians and brokers out there for one party to satisfy. With these rallies, PTI is fortifying its position as the main alternative to Nawaz in Punjab. It is hard to say whether it has displaced PML-N as the most popular party in the province, primarily because that doesn’t mean anything. Politics is not a popularity contest; it involves winning elections by being popular but, more importantly, by constructing social coalitions that can deliver votes. The question one should be asking is if elections were held today, would Imran win in Punjab? The answer is not as clear cut.

TNS: As a student of political economy, how do you view Imran Khan’s support base of the ‘educated middle class’? It is simply demographics, social development or, as you wrote in a recent column, "These are people with ambition, holding dreams of becoming even richer and more powerful"?

UJ: Demographic is just one descriptive characteristic -- they happen to belong to a particular population group. What makes them a ‘class’ is their economic character, their cultural and social outlook, and their understanding of their own status as a circumscribed group. In this sense, there is little doubt in my mind that the educated middle class -- PTI’s core electorate -- is well aware of what it wants and sees the PTI as a vehicle for delivering it. These are the people who see elite culture on a more regular basis; they sometimes attend the same schools, even go to the same places to eat. Yet, they feel the elite’s monopolised power, even though they’re more deserving.

TNS: How realistic is the PTI demand of mid-term elections?

UJ: It’s a ploy to keep themselves relevant, push the government into doing something stupid, or to allow the establishment or the PTI to crack open some intra-party fissures within the PML-N (defections, etc.). There seems to be no legal mechanism as of now through which an early election can be invoked. The government would have to take this decision, and unless there is pressure from within parliament (other opposition parties), I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Also read: Punjab -- the battleground for hegemony 

TNS: Has Imran Khan’s populism among the youth to do with his personality or promising to change the current order of things -- promise of a Naya Pakistan or a mix of Islam and Pakistani nationalism? What is your assessment of this heady enthusiasm of the young PTI supporters and do they come from the same ethnic geographical base as the rest of PTI or cut across it?

UJ: Young people in Pakistan are exposed to far more sources of half-baked information than any previous generation. They have also grown up in institutions where progressive politics does not exist, and the only ideological apparatus is right-wing Islam in the shape of faculty members or the IJT. The curriculum is conservative, the media is full of paknationalists and islamo-fascists, and the Internet is overflowing with forums and platforms where millenarian ideas are exchanged adrift of any real grounding in theory or history. It is in this milieu that slogans of ‘change’ gain immense traction.

The system is broken, there is no doubt about it. It does not deliver to many, and more importantly, it is perceived as not delivering to those that it has delivered to in the past -- the middle class, for example. In a post-ideological, media-driven country, young people will be drawn to convenient slogans, promising improvement, where they can feel good about themselves by showing up at a dharna or a political rally. Moreover, Imran Khan is now mainstream ‘cool’ in Pakistan. Peer-pressure and groupthink are even more entrenched because of social networking websites, and cellphone connectivity.

Ethnically, Imran’s support base is diverse. It would be wrong to suggest that it isn’t. The common factor though, I still feel, is class -- a middle class Sindhi and a middle class Pashtun may have more in common now -- thanks to their consumption of similar sources of information -- than at any point in the past. Statistically though, Imran is still drawing his biggest chunk from the many cities and towns of Punjab.

TNS: In this fight for power in Punjab, where do you see the PPP? Is there any scope left for a political voice that is not "non-uniformed right wing" as you defined these other two parties?

UJ: There is a lot of scope/potential, but the odds are stacked against any left-wing alternative. Firstly, it would require changing the pattern of politics away from patron-client machines run by local influential types. It would involve organising the poor, re-educating the middle class towards class solidarity with the poor, and uniformly opposing the maulvis. None of these tasks are easy, and the PPP is not showing any signs of making this effort. If it did decide to start organising, it might just re-open the possibility for progressive politics again.