It is not only the PMLN that has reached out to an electoral non-entity. Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and Pervez Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League have both approached the Sunni Tehrik (ST), a sectarian organisation with support mainly in Karachi and Hyderabad, for a possible electoral alliance. The ST had taken part in the last election with embarrassingly low three digit votes in all constituencies from where the party has contested. Why would a potential winner such as the PTI consider allying itself with a fringe party that has been such an electoral disaster in the past?
There appears to be only one plausible way of answering the question: defining the nature and explaining the politics of political parties and groups which remain fringe players in electoral terms but wield an oversized influence in terms of setting political, social, economic and legislative agendas.
Margin of success
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