MIANWALI QURESHIAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, aPakistani landowner and politician, recently switched to his third party ina decade. That is unlikely to prevent him retaining his seat in parliamentthis month, thanks to loyalty to a family name that has held sway overpolitics in this part of central Pakistan for generations.

“We’ve lived here for eight centuries,” said Bakhtyar, who will contest theseat under the banner of ex-cricket hero Imran Khan’s opposition party,after abandoning the outgoing ruling party of ousted former Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif.

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“If you live in an area for that long, you tend to develop social andpolitical capital,” he told Reuters in an interview at his marble-flooredmansion, nestled among the rolling mango plantations of Mianwali Qureshian,a village in southern Punjab.

Such outsize influence, enjoyed by dozens of aristocratic families in ruralparts of Punjab province thanks to centuries of rigid social, tribal orreligious tradition, is key to Khan’s strategy for winning Pakistan’s July25 general election.

Entrenched local powerbrokers, who include feudal lords, tribal chiefs,clan elders and spiritual leaders and are known in Pakistan as“electables”, hold about a quarter of Punjab’s 141 elected parliamentaryseats. Punjab, long the Sharif family’s electoral power base, in turnaccounts for more than half the 272 elected seats in the National Assembly,making it the key election battleground.

Khan has previously said he believes that winning over the province’selectables can weaken the Sharifs’ grip on Punjab and open up a path topower for him.

So far at least 21 Punjab lawmakers from Sharif’s Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N) have defected to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf(PTI), or Movement for Justice party, suggesting the strategy is bearingfruit.With polls also showing the PTI gaining ground, Khan is increasinglybeing tipped by analysts to be the next prime minister. But the embrace of“turncoat” politicians from traditional elites risks damaging his image asthe candidate of change.

Khan wooed the electables bloc at the last election, but by his ownadmission they flirted with him before opting for Sharif’s PML-N once itswept to power in 2013.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, deputy-chairman of PTI and an aristocratic Sufielder, said the party has become “pragmatic” after the 2013 poll, in whichit fielded ideological candidates who did not know the “art of contestingelections”.

“We need numbers (in parliament),” Qureshi told Reuters when asked aboutthe party’s pursuit of electables. “Unless we have numbers, how do weimplement the agenda for change?”

*AGAINST OUR PHILOSOPHY*

Khan, a former Pakistan cricket captain, founded PTI in 1996, but has onlyrecently broken through as a credible contender for power.

Sharif, who has clashed with the military before he was ousted from powerby the Supreme Court last year, alleges members of the military’sintelligence agency have been leaning on his lawmakers to switch sides andusher Khan to power.

Several politicians from prominent south Punjab families have told Reutersthat people they believed were intelligence agents have threatened themwith corruption cases if they did not abandon PML-N.

Reuters could not independently corroborate the events they described andthe military, which has ruled the country for about half its history,denies interfering in modern-day politics. Khan has dismissed suggestionshe is colluding with the generals.

Critics scorn electables as opportunists who switch allegiance depending onwhich way the electoral winds are blowing, and accuse them of selling theirloyalty to maintain access to resources.

“This happens in almost every election,” said Suhail Warraich, editor ofUrdu-language Daily Jang newspaper.

“But the tilt is more obvious (as it appears) PML-N will not be allowed tocome to power and definitely PTI is the favorite of our establishment,” headded, referring to elements of the military, judiciary and civil service.

An anti-corruption crusader, Khan spent years on the fringes deriding theinfluence of powerful dynastic families as a symptom of a dishonest andvenal political system. Now he defends his alliance with the electables asnecessary.

“I am fighting elections in Pakistan, not Europe,” Khan told theEnglish-language Dawn newspaper last week. “You contest elections to win.You don’t contest elections to be a good boy. I want to win.”

But his embrace of such traditional powerbrokers has angered some among hisparty rank and file.

“Electables are totally against our philosophy. The party was establishedon the idea of meritocracy and justice. This will ruin it,” said AsmatMalik, a PTI party worker protesting against electables outside Khan’s home.

In Mianwali Qureshian, Bakhtyar’s ancestral home in south Punjab, childrentrudge barefoot through the village, while residents bitterly complainabout lack of clean drinking water.

Bakhtyar rose to prominence when he served in the cabinet of formermilitary ruler Pervez Musharraf, who had ended Sharif’s earlier stint inpower in a coup. He joined Sharif’s party when he returned to power in 2013.

Rattling off World Bank statistics about poverty in south Punjab, Bakhtyarsaid he has made it his life goal to curb inequality, advocating for highertaxes and a welfare state.

“Either you are symbol of regressive forces or you decide to lead theprogressive forces,” he said. “I have taken the decision for the latter for21 years (in politics).”

Bakhtyar’s only real threat at the ballot box is his cousin, MakhdoomShahabuddin, another former cabinet minister and Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) grandee who is also revered locally as a spiritual leader andcustodian of a Sufi shrine.

A direct descendent of one of the missionaries who brought Islam to theregion more than 700 years ago, Shahabuddin said his hereditary role still“still carries weight with voters”.

Both men agree the political influence of families such as theirs iswaning, a trend analysts attribute to rapid urbanization, improvededucation and the rise of social media, which is making people moreinformed.

But electables remain PTI’s best bet to sweep south Punjab, Khan saidrecently.

Bakhtyar, who says he was not coerced and was never approached by themilitary’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, concedes his switchfrom PML-N to PTI was not based on ideology.

He led a bloc of lawmakers demanding Punjab, home to more than half ofPakistan’s 208 million people, be split up and more money funneled to thesouth, by far the poorest part of the country’s richest province.

Khan agreed to hive off a new province and scooped up the support ofBakhtyar’s bloc, he said.

“Since PTI is the new party on the horizon, from Khyber to Karachi, thatwas our best bet,” Bakhtyar said.