We may soon have a case of too-many-parties, not-enough-politicians in the country – given the rate of mushrooming parties. Days after being thrown out of the PTI, reportedly over his failure to respond to a show-cause notice, former chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has formed a new party, the rather obviously named Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Parliamentarians (PTI-P). Bigwig politicos from the province have already joined Khattak, including former KP CM Mahmood Khan. It had initially been reported that about 57 ex-assembly members joined Khattak’s party but soon after a list was provided to the media, nine of those whose names were circulated distanced themselves from the new party. Reports indicate that some others may do the same. This too seems to be in keeping with the New Party Trend these days: when Jahangir Tareen launched his Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP), even those who were present at the launching ceremony distanced themselves from the newly formed party in Punjab. Will Khattak’s PTI-P be a damp squib (some would say like the IPP)? Political observers are cautious in this assessment since they say that the dynamics of Punjab and KP are quite different and the future of Khattak’s party could be bright. Khattak retaining the ‘PTI’ abbreviation – while adding ‘parliamentarians’ – is also a clever move since by the time the next general elections are held, the PTI – the original PTI, that is – will likely not have too many willing candidates to contest the polls. This is not an exaggerated view seeing the trouble the PTI chairman and his party are in and talks of another ‘purge’ once the PDM government’s tenure ends and a caretaker government takes charge. This should give Khattak the momentum his party needs just before the general elections take place and more big names from KP are expected to join his party over the coming weeks as per some experts.
It is believed that, despite Imran Khan’s popularity, it was Pervez Khattak’s politics that got the PTI a win in the KP elections in 2018 to form the government there twice in a row. At the time, if one recalls, there was also talk that due to Khattak’s grip at the local level in the province, Imran had opted for Mahmood Khan to replace the former as CM, somewhat ‘sidelining’ Khattak with a federal ministry. In KP politics, Khattak is seen as a seasoned politician, a man who has been part of the PTI’s negotiating committees in the past, and someone known for firm yet non-confrontational politics. If he is successful in accumulating enough disgruntled electables from the PTI in KP, he may be able to form the next government in the province – something that will not be taken well by the JUI-F and other political parties that are eyeing the coveted KP government with the fall of the PTI.
This may also be a lesson in some hard irony for the PTI and Imran Khan, who had been gleefully announcing a split in the PML-N for years (all that talk of ‘sheen’ coming out of the ‘noon’ in the PML). At the end, despite some rather glaring ideological or strategic differences between Nawaz and Shehbaz, the brothers are – at least on the face of it – standing together in one party. With just a few weeks left before the end of the PDM government’s tenure – whether assemblies are dissolved a few days earlier or not – the next elections are going to be interesting – and not just in the centre. We have a new party in KP, a whole new set of alliances going on in Balochistan and Punjab still up in the air. The future of Khattak’s party depends on many factors, one of which is Imran Khan and his party’s future.