WASHINGTON: It has now been confirmed that after Asif Ali Zardari’s phone talk with Imran Khan, the PPP demanded three Senate seats from the PTI though it has only five MPs in the KP Assembly. And the talks ended there. It has also been confirmed that Imran Khan called Asif Zardari and initial denials by the PTI spokesperson Dr Shireen Mazari were misleading or bad decisions based on lack of coordination in the PTI leadership. The confirmation has come from a top PTI leader who says Imran Khan now admits that talking to Zardari was a big blunder, seen in hindsight.The PTI’s central media cell, as part of the damage control, had immediately admitted that Khan’s effort to persuade Zardari to stop horse-trading had been a failure. However, the cell did not address the issue why Khan suddenly felt confident that he could directly call Zardari, for the first time, and make him agree on something which the PPP leader is a master of —- negotiations and wheeling, dealing. Who pushed Khan to take such an amateurish decision is also now known. It was KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, who repeatedly asked Khan to contact Zardari and it was the PTI leader’s inexperience or failure to understand the capacity of his shrewd political opponents that he fell into the trap. Having stung badly by the blunder, Imran Khan has now taken a belligerent stand against those who would betray his party, but for many it may be too little, too late for retrieving the situation for this Senate poll. He has decided to camp in Peshawar and keep his chickens together and to take action against them if they refuse. One such action has already been announced against a defiant MP, whose membership has been suspended. Whether he loses his seat in the KP Assembly is not yet clear. The entire episode has damaged Imran, to some extent, but there is also a brighter side, which is not visible in other political parties: He admits his mistakes and tries to rectify the situation. A rich overseas Pakistani who contributes a lot to Imran Khan’s projects and understands the Pakistani politics says the biggest problem Imran has is the people around him, who are not tuned and comfortable with the clean and transparent style of straight-forward politics that Imran wants or tries to practice. “Khan’s party is like a boat in a muddy turbulent river, full of cracks and holes and overcrowded with unwanted free loaders. Khan cannot stay clean in such a situation. The people on his boat will ultimately either sink him or damage him badly,” says this well-wisher.Imran Khan now apparently has realised that he was being ill-advised and has thus gone back to his fighting mood, tolerating no nonsense, says an insider. But how he will get rid of old timers like Pervez Khattak or Shah Mahmood Qureshi who have been part of the old corrupt system many a time, who have enjoyed all parties, kept lucrative positions and compromised their values and morals, who are used to the meandering politics of give and take, double speak and hypocrisy? This is a big question but how Imran Khan responds to it will determine whether the hundreds of thousands who have flocked to support him, to vote for him and to hear him in huge rallies, stay with him or get disappointed and lose interest in politics at all. For the moment, Imran Khan seems determined to making another major effort to get back his lost credibility and repair the damaged image of a new politician who cannot fight the sharks and crocodiles of the Pakistani politics.
