In this photo, Prime Minister Imran Khan chairs a meeting of the federal cabinet. — Photo courtesy PMO
There is a sense of muted elation among the PTI high command. The comprehensive victory in Sialkot on Wednesday and in Azad Kashmir elections, while not really surprising, has provided the party an optical booster shot at a time when it needed a politically virile adrenalin hit. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Red Zone, some very powerful people are sporting some very big smiles.
The source of these smiles is not just one event, or one electoral victory, or one growth figure, or even one popularity survey — no, none of these on their own — but in fact the source is an organic mushrooming of perceptional belief that PTI is finally ascendant as a government. It is a belief rooted partly in the leader’s destiny, partly in the series of fortunate events that have enabled the unstable ship to navigate into calmer political waters, and partly in the inability of the opposition to present itself as a viable alternative.