War games

Out of my head

Imran Khan and the PTI didn’t win the 2013 elections but they sure did rock the boat, winning plenty of seats in the National Assembly, taking one province, and even had the MQM looking over their shoulders in Karachi. The great Khan may not have delivered on his guarantee (not that his ‘guarantees’ are meant to be taken seriously) of sweeping the elections but he had set himself up perfectly for the 2018 polls.

He had vast swathes of the young on his side. People were looking for change, wanting an alternative to dynastic politics, to sectarian and ethnic divides, to fascism, to feudalism and robber barons. People wanted accountability and a corruption free system.

The PTI may not have had a silver bullet but a big chunk of the Pakistani electorate was looking towards the party for solutions. Even people who weren’t quite convinced by the PTI leader, troubled by a lot of his muddled thinking, were rationalising that he may still be worth taking a chance on. Imran only needed to harness these expectations and build on them. Now that he had substantial representation in the assemblies and, indeed, was in control of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the platform was set for even greater success five years on. If only.

If only Imran had the patience to not be quintessentially Pakistani and look for short cuts. If only he had the foresight to use these five years to build on his gains and use KP as the perfect showcase to demonstrate to the electorate, the naysayers, the cynics what exactly he was capable of. To show that what he did in KP for education, the economy, health, sanitation, and security he could do for the country as a whole.

He needed to use the half decade that followed the 2013 elections to initiate legislation in the National Assembly and use that institution to question the government’s policies and performance and to present his alternatives so that we could understand his own policies and priorities. That’s what he and his senior PTI officials needed to bang on about for five years when they went on the various television channels and political talk shows: their own performance in KP, their efforts at legislation, the supremacy of parliament, and the performance (or lack thereof) of the federal government and the PTI’s detailed policy alternatives.

With the penchant of the Sharifs and their PML-N cronies to shoot themselves in the foot (they were almost guaranteed to do so at some point), Imran Khan had the perfect recipe for success in 2018. Sure, electoral reforms were needed to ensure that no fingers could be pointed after the next election, but that was also more likely to happen than not after Nawaz Sharif had agreed (granted only after much public pressure from the PTI) to the formation of a bipartisan parliamentary committee towards that end.

But 2018 was too far off for the PTI leader. He wanted to take the reins of the country and he wanted to take it now! So, reportedly encouraged by certain nameless quarters and using the various question marks around the 2013 elections (despite the formation of the aforementioned electoral reforms parliamentary committee) he plunged the country into near chaos with his four month long dharna. That long march and sit-in eventually accomplished nothing – and could not have accomplished anything, democratically speaking.

Even if the Nawaz government had fallen what would have replaced it? An interim, ‘national’ setup? Who would have been responsible for forming this ‘national’ government? How long was this caretaker setup supposed to last? If elections were held within 90 days (as a token nod to the constitution) how exactly were we guaranteed that they would be ‘free and fair’ given that three months was certainly not enough time to agree on or implement any substantive electoral reforms.

But did the dharna actually not accomplish anything? One year on from their electoral victory Nawaz and his squad had – predictably – started to grow too big for their boots. As for Imran, there was a possibility (however slim) that despite his political initiation at the hands of Hamid ‘Gen Strategic Depth’ Gul, if he had ever come into power he was just ‘khar dimagh’ enough and unburdened by inconvenient political baggage enough to actually shake up the status quo – for good or for bad.

By the time the dharna was over Nawaz and his men had been sufficiently cowed down and, learnt, in no uncertain terms, exactly what their place was. Imran had lost substantial ground and a lot fewer people were willing to take him seriously. Now – post-dharna – the probability of Imran Khan ever becoming prime minister is close to nil.

If I was war gaming scenarios so that the status quo remained essentially unchanged for many, many years to come, I couldn’t have played my hand any better.

Despite this, the PTI leader continues to drone on about one thing and one thing only – the resignation of Nawaz (now it’s over the Panama leaks, tomorrow it’ll be something else). Not that Nawaz and Co aren’t answerable for their actions but before you know it the 2018 elections will be upon us and Imran remains as ill-prepared as ever.

The parliamentary committee for electoral reforms lies moribund, having accomplished nothing since its formation – with its PTI members as disinterested in its workings as the rest of the committee. So the 2018 elections will also have question marks hanging over them. I don’t know exactly what the PTI has accomplished in KP in the last three years. I don’t know what national policies and initiatives the PTI has for the economy, health, sanitation, environment, culture, education, and so on.

I may have many reasons to vote against the PPP or PML-N but Imran still hasn’t given me any reasons to vote PTI.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

Email: Kmumtaz1@hotmail.com

Twitter: @KhusroMumtaz