2018 is billed as the election year and we are fast heading towards it. The Senate election, no matter how controversial and divisive it proved to be, has been successfully held.

To be fair, in the last five years, a lot of political activity and the administrative changes it required like census and delimitation of constituencies, not to forget the local bodies’ polls, were conducted at the behest of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

On its part, the government did oblige the courts, maybe for want of choice. And today, it seems, there is nothing that can stop the election from taking place by the stipulated time.

Meanwhile, the subject most discussed is the so-called ‘Bajwa Doctrine’, which has the potential to overshadow all politics, considering Pakistan’s peculiar reality and given the understanding about establishment’s tacit role in changes in Balochistan Assembly and Senate election.

It is against this backdrop that one must look at the campaign for the upcoming election, with no single political party having come out openly against establishment’s role in politics; the loud cries of the father-daughter duo of PML-N against the courts, alleging conspiracy, have become rather muted.

Read also: The right side of politics

In today’s Special Report, we have focused on the election strategies of five major parties and alliances viz. the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the religious parties and alliances and finally the Baloch and Pashtun nationalist parties.

One major political party that is excluded from discussion is Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) whose status as a single party has been put into question for the last couple of years. A party that was believed to have been artificially created to serve certain vested interests of the rulers is once again thought to have been given an unfair deal. Analysts therefore predict a divided mandate in MQM strongholds, the urban areas of Sindh, where the seats might be unevenly distributed among various factions of MQM and other mainstream parties.

For the prospects of the other five parties and sets of alliances, read this report on the mechanics of election 2018.